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Frontispiece. 


“Why — it’s gold!” 
See Page 231. 



( 


NORTH 

OF FIFTY-THREE 




BY 


BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR 

n 

AUTHOR OP “ THE LAND OF FROZEN SUNS,” ETC. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
ANTON OTTO FISCHER 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1916 



Copyright, igi4, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 


All rights reserved. 



)Printrr* 

S. J. Pahkhill a COm Boston, U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


CBAPTSms 

I. 

Which Introduces a Lady 

AND 

PAe* 

Two 


Gentlemen 

. 


1 

II. 

Heart, Hand — and Pocketbook 


9 

III. 

<*I Do Give and Bequeath” 



. 23 

IV. 

An Explanation Demanded 



. 84 

V. 

The Wat of the World at 

Large 

. 43 

VI. 

Cariboo Meadows 



. 57 

VII. 

A Different Sort of Man 



. 73 

VIII. 

In Deep Water . 



. 88 

IX. 

The House that Jack Built 



. 101 

X. 

A Little Personal History 



. 113 

XL 

Winter — and a Truce 



. 127 

XII. 

The Fires of Spring 



. 138 

XIII. 

The Out Trail . 



. 144 

XIV. 

The Drone of the Hive . 



. 153 

XV. 

An Ending and a Beginning 



. 167 

XVI. 

A Brief Time of Planning 



. 174 

XVII. 

En Route .... 



. 185 

XVIII. 

The Wintering Place 



. 194 

XIX. 

Four Walls and a Roof 



. 203 

XX. 

Boreas Chants His Lay . 



. 211 

XXL 

Jack Frost Withdraws . 



. 219 


CONTENTS 


vi 


Chaptxks 

XXII. 

The Strike 

• 


• 

• 

Pao> 

225 

XXIII. 

The Stress of the Trail 

• 

• 

• 

234 

XXIV. 

Neighbors 

• 

• 

• 

« 

246 

XXV. 

The Dollar Chasers 


• 

• 

• 

259 

XXVI. 

A Business Proposition 

• 

• 

• 

271 

XXVII. 

A Business Journey 

• 

• 

• 

• 

281 

XXVIII. 

The Bomb 

• 

• 

• 

• 

286 

XXIX. 

The Note Discordant 

• 


• 

• 

297 

XXX. 

The Aftermath 

• 

• 

• 

• 

301 

XXXI. 

A Letter from Bill 

• 

• 

• 

• 

309 

XXXII. 

The Spur 

• 

• 

• 

• 

321 

XXXIII. 

Home Again . 

• 

• 

• 

• 

330 

XXXIV. 

After Many Days . 

# 

• 

• 

• 

337 


List of Illustrations 


“ Oh ! ” she gasped. “ Why — it’s gold ! ” . 

Roaring Bill Wagstaff stood within five feet of 
her, resting one hand on the muzzle of his 
grounded ride 

“ Hurt ? No,” he murmured ; “ I’m just plain 
scared.” ....... 

Bill stood before the fireplace, his shaggy fur 
cap pushed far back on his head 


Frontispiece 

PAGE 105 

“ 150 


341 





NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


CHAPTER I 

WHICH INTRODUCES A LADY AND TWO GENTLEMEN 

Dressed in a plain white shirt waist and an equally 
plain black cloth skirt, Miss Hazel Weir, on week days, 
was merely a unit in the office force of Harrington & 
Bush, implement manufacturers. Neither in person- 
ality nor in garb would a casual glance have differen- 
tiated her from the other female units, occupied at 
various desks. A close observer might have noticed 
that she was a bit younger than the others, possessed 
of a clear skin and large eyes that seemed to hold all 
the shades between purple and gray — eyes, moreover, 
that had not yet begun to weaken from long applica- 
tion to clerical work. A business office is no place for 
a woman to parade her personal charms. The measure 
of her worth there is simply the measure of her efficiency 
at her machine or ledgers. So that if any member of 
the firm had beep, asked what sort of a girl Miss Hazel 
Weir might be, he would probably have replied — and 
with utmost truth — that Miss Weir was a capable ste- 
nographer. 

But when Saturday evening released Miss Hazel 


2 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Weir from the plain brick office building, she became, 
until she donned her working clothes at seven a. m. 
Monday morning, quite a different sort of a person. 
In other words, she chucked the plain shirt waist and the 
plain skirt into the discard, got into such a '^ss as 
a normal girl of twenty-two delights to put on, and de- 
voted a half hour or so to doing ” her hair. Which 
naturally effected a more or less complete transforma- 
tiQn, a transformation that was subjective as well as 
purely objective. For Miss Weir then became an en- 
tity at which few persons of either sex failed to take a 
second glance. 

Upon a certain Saturday night Miss Weir came 
home from an informal little party escorted by a young 
man. They stopped at the front gate. 

“ I’ll be here at ten sharp,” said he. “ And you get 
a good beauty sleep to-night. Hazel. That confounded 
office ! I hate to think of you drudging away at it. I 
wish we were ready to — ” 

“ Oh, bother the office ! ” she replied lightly. “ I 
don’t think of it out of office hours. Anyway, I don’t 
mind. It doesn’t tire me. I will be ready at ten this 
time. Good night, dear.” 

“ Good night, Hazie,” he whispered. “ Here’s a kiss 
to dream on.” 

Miss Weir broke away from him laughingly, ran 
along the path, and up the steps, kissed her finger-tips 
to the lingering figure by the gate, and went in. 

“ Bed,” she soliloquized, “ is the place for me right 
quickly if I’m going to be up and dressed and have that 
lunch ready by ten o’clock. I wish I weren’t such a 


A LADY AND TWO GENTLEMEN 3 

sleepyhead — or else that I weren’t a ‘ pore wurrkin’ 
gurh’ ” 

At which last conceit she laughed softly. Because, 
for a “ pore wurrkin’ gurl,” Miss Weir was fairly well 
conteiiC with her lot. She had no one dependent on 
her — a state of affairs which, if it occasionally leads 
to loneliness, has its compensations. Her salary as a 
stenographer amply covered her living expenses, and 
even permitted her to put by a few dollars monthly. 
She had grown up in Granville. She had her own cir- 
cle of friends. So that she was comfortable, even 
happy, in the present — and J ack Barrow proposed to 
settle the problem of her future ; with youth’s optimism, 
they two considered it already settled. Six months 
more, and there was to be a wedding, a three-weeks’ 
honeymoon, and a final settling down in a little cottage 
on the West Side ; everybody in Granville who amounted 
to anything lived on the West Side. Then she would 
have nothing to do but make the home nest cozy, while 
Jack kept pace with a real-estate business that was 
growing beyrmd his most sanguine expectations. 

She threw her light wraps over the back of a chair, 
and, standing before her dresser, took the multitude of 
pins out of her hair and tumbled it, a cloudy black mass, 
about her shoulders. Occupying the center of the 
dresser, in a leaning silver frame, stood a picture of 
Jack Barrow. She stood looking at it a minute, smil- 
ing absently. It was spring, and her landlady’s daugh- 
ter had set a bunch of wild flowers in a jar beside the 
picture. Hazel picked out a daisy and plucked away 
the petals one by one. 


4 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ He loves me — he loves me not — he loves me — ” 
Her lips formed the words inaudibly, as countless lips 
have formed them in love’s history, and the last petal 
fluttered away at “not.” 

She smiled. 

“ I wonder if that’s an omen ? ” she murmured. 
“ Pshaw ! What a silly idea ! I’m going to bed. 
Good night, Johnny boy.” 

She kissed her finger-tips to him again across the 
rooftops all grimed with a winter’s soot, and within 
fifteen minutes Miss Weir waa sound asleep. 

She gave the lie, for once, to the saying that a woman 
is never ready at the appointed time by being on the 
steps a full ten minutes before Jack Barrow appeared. 
They walked to the corner and caught a car, and in the 
span of half an hour got off at Granville Park. 

The city fathers, hampered in days gone by with 
lack of municipal funds, had left the two-hundred-acre 
square of the park pretty much as nature made it ; that 
is to say, there was no ornate parking, no attempt at 
landscape gardening. Ancient maples spread their 
crooked arms untrimmed, standing in haphazard 
groves. Wherever the greensward flourished, there 
grew pink-tipped daisies and kindred flowers of the wild. 
It was gutted in the middle with a ravine, the lower end 
of which, dammed by an earth embankment, formed a 
lake with the inevitable swans and other water-fowl. 
But, barring the lake and a wide drive that looped and 
twined through the timber, Granville Park was a bit 
of the old Ontario woodland, and as such afforded a 


A LADY AND TWO GENTLEMEN 5 


pleasant place to loaf in the summer months. It was 
full of secluded nooks, dear to the hearts of young 
couples. And upon a Sunday the carriages of the 
wealthy affected the smooth drive. 

When Jack Barrow and Hazel had finished their 
lunch under the trees, in company with a little group 
of their acquaintances. Hazel gathered scraps of bread 
and cake into a paper bag. 

Barrow whispered to her : Let’s go down and 
feed the swans. I’d just as soon be away from the 
crowd.” 

She nodded assent, and they departed hastily lest 
some of the others should volunteer their company. 
It took but a short time to reach the pond. They 
found a log close to the water’s edge, and, taking a seat 
there, tossed morsels to the birds and chattered to each 
other. 

“ Look,” said Barrow suddenly ; “ that’s us ten years 
from now.” 

A carriage passed slowly, a solemn, liveried coach- 
man on the box, a handsome, smooth-shaven man of 
thirty-five and a richly gowned woman leaning back and 
looking out over the pond with bored eyes. And that 
last, the half-cynical, half-contemptuous expression on 
the two faces, impressed Hazel Weir far more than the 
showy equipage, the outward manifestation of wealth. 

“ I hope not,” she returned impulsively. 

“ Hope not ! ” Barrow echoed. “ Those people are 
worth a barrel of money. Wouldn’t you like your own 
carriage, and servants, and income enough to have 
everything you wanted ” 


6 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ Of course,” Hazel answered. ‘‘ But they don’t 
look as if they really enjoyed it.” 

“ Fiddlesticks ! ” Barrow smilingly retorted. “ Ev- 
erybody enjoys luxury.” 

“ Well, one should,” Hazel admitted. But she still 
held to the impression that the couple passing got no 
such pleasure out of their material possessions as Jack 
seemed to think. It was merely an intuitive divination. 
She could not have found any basis from which to 
argue the point. But she was very sure that she would 
not have changed places with the woman in the car- 
riage, and her hand stole out and gave his a shy little 
squeeze. 

“ Look,” she murmured ; “ here’s another of the plut- 
ocrats. One of my esteemed employers, if you please. 
You’ll notice that he’s walking and looking at things 
just like us ordinary, everyday mortals.” 

Barrow glanced past her, and saw a rather tall, mid- 
dle-aged man, his hair tinged with gray, a fine-looking 
man, dressed with exceeding nicety, even to a flower 
in his coat lapel, walking slowly along the path that 
bordered the pond. He stopped a few yal-ds beyond 
them, and stood idly glancing over the smooth stretch 
of water, his gloved hands resting on the knob of a 
silver-mounted cane. 

Presently his gaze wandered to them, and the cool, 
well-bred stare gradually gave way to a slightly puz- 
zled expression. He moved a step or two and seated 
himself on a bench. Miss Weir became aware that he 
was looking at her most of the time as sh*e sat casting 
the b'ts of bread to the swans and ducks. It made 


A LADY AND TWO GENTLEMEN 


7 


her self-conscious. She did not know why she should 
be of any particular interest. 

“ Let’s walk around a little,” she suggested. The 
last of the crumbs were gone. 

“ All right,” Barrow assented. “ Let’s go up the 
ravine.” 

They left the log. Their course up the ravine took 
them directly past the gentleman on the bench. And 
when they came abreast of him, he rose and lifted his 
hat at the very slight inclination of Miss Weir’s head. 

“ How do you do, Mis^ Weir.? ” said he. “ Quite 
a pleasant afternoon.” 

To the best of Hazel’s knowledge, Mr. Andrew Bush 
was little given to friendly recognition of his em- 
ployees, particularly in public. But he seemed in- 
clined to be talkative; and, as she caught a slightly in- 
quiring glance at her escort, she made the necessary 
introduction. So for a minute or two the three of 
them stood there exchanging polite banalities. Then 
Mr. Bush bowed and passed on. 

“ He’s one of the biggest guns in Granville, they 
say,” Jack observed. “ I wouldn’t mind having some 
of his business to handle. He started with nothing, 
too, according to all accounts. Now, that’s what I 
call success.” 

“ Oh, yes, in a business way he’s a success,” Hazel 
responded. “ But he’s ’awfully curt most of the time 
around the ofBce. I wonder what made him thaw out 
so to-day.?” 

And that question recurred to her mind again in the 
evening, when Jack had gone home and she was sitting 


8 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


in her own room. She wheeled her chair around and took 
a steady look at herself in the mirror. A woman may 
never admit extreme plainness of feature, and she may 
deprecate her own fairness, if she be possessed of fair- 
ness, but she seldom has any illusions about one or the 
other. She knows. Hazel Weir knew that she was 
far above the average in point of looks. If she had 
never taken stock of herrself before, the reflection fac- 
ing her now was sufficient to leave no room for doubt 
on th^score of beauty. Her skin was smooth, delicate 
in texture, and as delicately tinted. The tan pongee 
dress she wore set off her dark hair and expressive, 
bluish-gray eyes. 

She was smiling at herself just as she had been smil- 
ing at Jack Barrow while they sat on the log and fed 
the swans. And she made an amiable grin at the re- 
flection in the glass. But even though Miss Weir was 
twenty-two and far from unsophisticated, it did not 
strike her that the transition of herself from a demure, 
business-like office person in sober black and white to 
a radiant creature with the potent influences of love 
and spring brightening her eyes and lending a veiled 
caress to her every supple movement, satisfactorily 
accounted for the sudden friendliness of Mr. Andrew 
Bush. 


CHAPTER II 


HEAET, HAND ^AND POCKETBOOK 

Miss Weir was unprepared for what subsequently 
transpired as a result of that casual encounter with 
the managing partner of the firm. By the time she 
went to work on Monday morning she had almost for- 
gotten the meeting in Granville Park. And she was 
only reminded of it when, at nine o’clock, Mr. Andrew 
Bush walked through the office, greeting the force with 
his usual curt nod and inclusive “ good morning ” be- 
fore he disappeared behind the ground-glass door 
lettered “ Private.” With the weekday he had ap- 
parently resumed his business manner. 

Hazel’s work consisted largely of dictation from the 
shipping manager, letters relating to outgoing consign- 
ments of implements. She was rapid and efficient, and, 
having reached the zenith of salary paid for such work, 
she expected to continue in the same routine until she 
left Harrington & Bush for good. 

It was, therefore, something of a surprise to be 
called into the office of the managing partner on Tues- 
day afternoon. Bush’s private stenographer sat at 
her machine in one comer. 

Mr. Bush turned from his desk at Hazel’s entrance. 

“ Miss Weir,” he said, “ I wish you to take some 
letters.” 


10 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Hazel went back for her notebook, wondering mildly 
why she should be called upon to shoulder a part of 
Nelly Morrison’s work, and a trifle dubious at the pros- 
pect of facing the rapid-fire dictation Mr. Bush was 

said to inflict upon his stenographer now and then. 

She had the confidence of long practice, however, and 
l^new that she was equal to anything in reason that he 
might give her. 

When she was seated, Bush took up a sheaf of letters, 
and dictated replies. Though rapid, his enunciation 
was perfectly clear, and Hazel found herself getting his 
words with greater ease than she had expected. 

“ That’s all, Miss Weir,” he said, when he reached 
the last letter. ‘‘ Bring those in for verification and 
signature as soon as you can get them done.” 

In the course of time she completed the letters and 

took them back. Bush glanced over each, and ap- 

pended his signature. 

“ That’s all. Miss Weir,” he said politely. “ Thank 
you.” 

And Hazel went back to her machine, wondering why 
she had been requested to do those letters when Nelly 
Morrison had nothing better to do than sit picking at 
her type faces with a toothpick. 

She learned the significance of it the next morning, 
however, when the oflSce boy told her that she was 
wanted by Mr. Bush. This time when she entered 
Nelly Morrison’s place was vacant. Bush was going 
through his mail. He waved her to a chair. 

‘‘ Just a minute,” he said. 

Presently he wheeled from the desk and regarded 


HEART, HAND, POCKETBOOK 


II 


her with disconcerting frankness — as if he were ap- 
praising her, point by point, so to speak. 

“ My — ah — dictation to you yesterday was in the 
nature of a try-out. Miss Weir,” he finally volunteered. 
“ Miss Morrison has asked to be transferred to our 
Midland branch. Mr. Allan recommended you. You 
are a native of Granville, I understand.?^ ” 

“ Yes,” Hazel answered, wondering what that had to 
do with the position Nelly Morrison had vacated. 

“ In that case you will not likely be desirous of 
leaving suddenly,” he went on. “ The work will not 
be hard, but I must have some one dependable and dis- 
creet, and careful to avoid errors. I think you will 
manage it very nicely if you — ah — have no objec- 
tion to giving up the more general work of the oflSce 
for this. The salary will be considerably more.” 

“ If you consider that my work will be satisfactory,” 
Miss Weir began. 

‘‘ I don’t think there’s any doubt on that score. You 
have a good record in the office,” he interrupted smil- 
ingly, and Hazel observed that he could be a very 
agreeable and pleasant-speaking gentleman when he 
chose — a manner not altogether in keeping with her 
former knowledge of him — and she had been with the 
firm nearly two years. “ Now, let us get to work and 
clean up this correspondence.” 

Thus her new duties began. There was an air of 
quiet in the private oflSce, a greater luxury of appoint- 
ment, which suited Miss Hazel Weir to a nicety. The 
work was no more difficult than she had been accustomed 
to doing — a trifle less in volume, and more exacting 


12 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


in attention to detail, and necessarily more confidential, 
for Mr. Andrew Bush had his finger-tips on the pulsing 
heart of a big business. 

Hazel met Nelly Morrison the next day while on her 
way home to lunch. 

“Well, how goes the new job?” quoth Miss Mor- 
rison. 

“ All right so far,”. Hazel smiled. “ Mr. Bush said 
you were going to Midland.” 

“ Leaving for there in the morning,” said Nelly. 
“ I’ve been wanting to go for a month, but Mr. Bush 
objected to breaking in a new girl — until just the 
other day. I’m sort of sorry to go, too, and I don’t 
suppose I’ll have nearly so good a place. For one 
thing. I’ll not get so much salary as I had with Mr. 
Bush. But mamma’s living in Midland, and two of 
my brothers work there. I’d much rather live at home 
than room and live in a trunk. I can have a better time 
even on less a week.” 

“ Well, I hope you get along nicely,” Hazel pro- 
ofFered. 

“ Oh, I will. Leave that to me,” Miss Morrison 
laughed. “ By the way, what do you think of Mr. 
Bush, anyway? But of course you haven’t had much 
to do with him yet. You’ll find him awfully nice and 
polite, but, my, he can be cutting when he gets irri- 
tated ! I’ve known him to do some awfully mean things 
in a business way. I wouldn’t want to get him down 
on me. I think he’d hold a grudge forever.” 

They walked together until Hazel turned into the 
street which led to her boarding place. Nelly Mor- 


HEART, HAND, POCKETBOOK 


13 


rison chattered principally of Mr. Bush. No matter 
what subject she opened up, she came back to discus- 
sion of her employer. Hazed gathered that she had 
found him rather exacting, and also that she was in- 
clined to resent his curt manner. Withal, Hazel knew 
Nelly Morrison to be a first-class stenographer, and 
found herself wondering how long it would take the 
managing partner to find occasion for raking her over 
the coals. 

As the days passed, she began to wonder whether 
Miss Morrison had been quite correct in her summing 
up of Mr. Andrew Bush. She was not a great deal 
in his company, for unless attending to the details of 
business Mr. Bush kept himself in a smaller office open- 
ing out of the one where she worked. Occasionally 
the odor of cigar smoke escaped therefrom, and in that 
inner sanctum he received his most important callers. 
Whenever he was in Miss Weir’s presence, however, he 
manifested none of the disagreeable characteristics that 
Nelly Morrison had ascribed to him. 

The size of the check which Hazel received in her 
weekly envelope was increased far beyond her expec- 
tations. Nelly Morrison had drawn twenty dollars a 
week. Miss Hazel Weir drew twenty-five — a sub- 
stantial increase over what she had received in the ship- 
ping department. And while she wondered a trifle at 
the voluntary raising of her salary, it served to make 
her anxious to competently fill the new position, so 
long as she worked for wages. With that extra money 
there were plenty of little things she could get for the 
home-^he and Jack Barrow had planned. 


14 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Things n?oved along in routine channels for two 
months or more before Hazel became actively aware 
that a subtle change was growing manifest in the or- 
dinary manner of Mr. Andrew Bush. She shrugged 
her shoulders at the idea at first. But she was a 
woman ; moreover, a woman of intelligence, her per- 
ceptive faculties naturally keen. 

The first symptom was flowers, dainty bouquets of 
which began to appear on his desk. Coincident with 
this, Mr. Bush evinced an inclination to drift into talk 
on subjects nowise related to business. Hazel ac- 
cepted the tribute to her sex reluctantly, gi^dng him 
no encouragement to overstep the normal bounds of 
cordiality. She was absolutely sure of herself and 
of her love for Jack Barrow. Furthermore, Mr. An- 
drew Bush, though well preserved, was drawing close 
to fifty — and she was twenty-two. That in itself re- 
assured her. If he had been thirty. Miss Weir might 
have felt herself upon dubious ground. He admired 
her as a woman. She began to realize that. And no 
woman ever blames a man for paying her that compli- 
ment, no matter what she may say to the contrary. 
Particularly when he does not seek to annoy her by 
his admiration. 

So long as Mr. Bush confined himself to affable con- 
versation, to sundry gifts of hothouse flowers, and 
only allowed his feelings outlet in certain telltale 
glances when he thought she could not see. Hazel felt 
disinclined to fly from what was at worst a possibility. 

Thus the third month of her tenure drifted by, and 
beyond the telltale glances aforesaid, Mr. Bush re- 


HEART, HAND, POCKETBOOK 15 


mained tentatively friendly and nothing more. Hazel 
spent her Sundays as she had spent them for a year 
past — with Jack Barrow ; sometimes rambling afoot 
in the country or in the park, sometimes indulging in 
the luxury of a hired buggy for a drive. Usually they 
went alone; occasionally with a party of young people 
like themselves. 

But Mr. Bush took her breath away at a time and in 
a manner totally unexpected. He finished dictating 
a batch of letters one afternoon, and sat tapping on his 
desk with a pencil. Hazel waited a second or two, ex- 
pecting him to continue, her eyes on her notes, and 
at the unbroken silence she looked up, to find him star- 
ing fixedly at her. There was no mistaking the ex- 
pression on his face. Hazel flushed and shrank back 
involuntarily. She had hoped to avoid that. It could 
not be anything but unpleasant. 

She had small chance to indulge in reflection, for 
at her first self-conscious move he reached swiftly and 
caught her hand. 

“ Hazel,” he said bluntly, “ will you marry me? ” 

Miss Weir gasped. Coming without warning, it 
dura founded her. And while her flrst natural impulse 
was to answer a blunt “ No,” she was flustered, and so 
took refuge behind a show of dignity. 

“ Mr. Bush ! ” she protested, and tried to release 
her hand. 

But Mr. Bush had no intention of allowing her to 
do that. 

“ I’m in deadly earnest,” he said. “ I’ve loved you 
ever since that Sunday I saw you in the park feeding 


i6 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


the swans. I want you to be my wife. Will you ? ” 

“ I’m awfully sorry,” Hazel stammered. She was 
just the least bit frightened. The man who stared at 
her with burning eyes and spoke to her in a voice that 
quivered with emotion was so different from the calm, 
repressed individual she had known as her employer. 

“ Why, you’re ” The thing that was uppermost 

in her mind, and what she came near saying, was: 
“ You’re old enough to be my father.” And beside 
him there instantly flashed a vision of Jack Barrow. 
Of course it was absurd — even though she appreciated 
the honor. But she did not finish the sentence that 
way. “ I don’t ~ oh, it’s simply impossible. I 
couldn’t think of such a thing.” 

“Why not?” he asked. “I love you. You know 
that — you can see it, can’t you ? ” He leaned a little 
nearer, and forced her to meet his gaze. “ I can make 
you happy; I can make you love me. I can give you 
all that a woman could ask.” 

“ Yes, but — ” 

He interrupted her quickly, “ Perhaps I’ve sur- 
prised and confused you by my impulsiveness,” he con- 
tinued. “ But I’ve had no chance to meet you* so- 
cially. Sitting here in the ofiice, seeing you day after 
day, I’ve had to hold myself in check. And a man 
only does that so long, and no longer. Perhaps right 
now you don’t feel as I do, but I can teach you to feel 
that way. I can give you ever3rthing — money, so- 
cial position, everything^ that’s worth having — and 
love. I’m not an empty-headed boy. I can make you 
love me.” 


HEART, HAND, POCKETBOOK 


17 


“ You couldn’t,” Hazel answered flatly. There was 
a note of dominance in that last statement that jarred 
on her. Mr. Bush was too sure of his powers. “ And 
I have no desire to experiment with my feelings as you 
suggest — not for all the wealth and social position in 
the world. I would have to love a man to think of 
marrying him — and I do. But you aren’t the man. 
I appreciate the compliment of your offer, and I’m 
sorry to hurt you, but I can’t marry you.” 

He released her hand. Miss Weir found herself sud- 
denly shaky. Not that she was afraid, or had any 
cause for fear, but the nervous tension somehow re- 
laxed when she finished speaking so frankly. 

His face clouded. “You are engaged.?” 

“ Yes.” 

He got up and stood over her. “ To some self- 
centered cub — some puny egotist in his twenties, 
who’ll make you a slave to his needs and whims, and 
discard you for another woman when you’ve worn out 
your youth and beauty,” he cried. “ But you won’t 
marry him. I won’t let you ! ” 

Miss Weir rose. “ I think I shall go home,” she said 
steadily. 

“You shall do nothing of the sort! There is no 
sense in your running away from me and giving rise 
to gossip — which will hurt yourself only.” 

“ I am not running away, but I can’t stay here and 
listen to such things from you. It’s impossible, under 
the circumstances, for me to continue working here, so 
I may as well go now.” 

Bush stepped past her and snapped the latch on the 


i8 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


office door. “ I slmn’t permit it,” he said passionately. 
“ Girl, you don’t seem to realize what this means to 
me. I want you — and I’m going to have you ! ” 

“ Please don’t be melodramatic, Mr. Bush.” 

“ Melodramatic ! If it is melodrama for a man to 
show a little genuine feeling, I’m guilty. But I was 
never more in earnest in my life. I want a chance to 
win you. I value you above any woman I have ever 
met. Most women that — ” 

“ Most women would jump at the chance,” Hazel 
interrupted. “ Well, I’m not most women. I don’t 
consider myself as a marketable commodity, nor my 
looks as an aid to driving a good bargain in a matri- 
monial way. I simply don’t care for you as you would 
want me to — and I’m very sure I never would.* And, 
seeing that you do feel that way, it’s better that we 
shouldn’t be thrown together as we are here. That’s 
why I’m going.” 

“ That is to say, you’ll resign because I’ve told you 
I care for you and proposed marriage? ” he remarked. 

“ Exactly. It’s the only thing to do under the cir- 
cumstances.” 

“ Give me a chance to show you that I can make you 
happy,” he pleaded. “ Don’t leave. Stay here where 
I can at least see you and speak to you. I won’t an- 
noy you. And you can’t tell. After you get over this 
surprise you might find yourself liking me better.” 

“ That’s just the trouble,” Hazel pointed out. ‘‘If 
I were here you would be bringing this subject up in 
spite of yourself. And that can only cause pain. 1 
can’t stay.” 


HEART, HAND, POCKETBOOK ig 


“ I think you had better reconsider that,” he said ; 
and a peculiar — an ugly — light crept into his eyes, 
“ unless you desire to lay yourself open to being the 
most-talked-of young woman in this town, where you 
were bom, where all your friends live. Many disagree- 
able things might result.” 

“ That sounds like a threat, Mr. Bush. What do 
you mean.? ” 

“ I mean just what I say. I will admit that mine is, 
perhaps, a selfish passion. If you insist on making me 
suffer, I shall do as much for you. I believe in pay- 
ing all debts in full, even with high interest. There are 
two characteristics of mine which may not have come 
to your attention: I never stop struggling for what 
I want. And I never forgive or forget an injury or 
an insult.” 

“ Well.? ” Hazel was beginning to see a side of Mr. 
Andrew Bush hitherto unsuspected. 

“ Well.? ” he repeated. “ If you drive me to it, you 
will find yourself drawing the finger of gossip. Also, 
you will find yourself unable to secure a position in 
Granville. Also, you may find yourself losing the — 
er — regard of this — ah — fortunate individual upon 
whom you have bestowed your affections; but you’ll 
never lose mine,” he burst out wildly. “ When you get 
done butting your head against the wall that will 
mysteriously rise in your way. I’ll be waiting for you. 
That’s how I love. I’ve never failed in anything I 
ever undertook, and I don’t care how I fight, fair or 
foul, so that I win.” 

“ This isn’t the fifteenth century,” Hazel let her in- 


20 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


dignation flare, “ and I’m not at all afraid of any of the 
things you mention. Even if you could possibly bring 
these things about, it would only make me despise you, 
which I’m in a fair way to do now. Even if I weren’t 
engaged, I’d never think of marrying a man old enough 
to be my father — a man whose years haven’t given him 
a sense of either dignity or decency. Wealth and so- 
cial position don’t modify gray hairs and advancing 
age. Your threats are an insult. This isn’t the stone 
age. Even if it were,” she concluded cuttingly, 
“ you’d stand a poor chance of winning a woman against 
a man like — well — ” She shrugged her shoulders, 
but she was thinking of Jack Barrow’s broad shoulders, 
and the easy way he went up a flight of stairs, three 
steps at a time. Well, any young man.” 

With that thrust. Miss Hazel Weir turned to the 
rack where hung her hat and coat. She was thoroughly 
angry, and her employment in that office ended then 
and there so far as she was concerned. 

Bush caught her by the shoulders before she took a 
second step. 

Gray hairs and advancing age ! ” he said. ‘‘ So 
I strike you as approaching senility, do I.? I’ll show 
you whether I’m the worn-out specimen you seem to 
think I am. Do you think I’ll give you up just be- 
cause I’ve made you angry.? Why, I love you the more 
for it; it only makes me the more determined to win 
you.” 

‘‘You can’t. I dislike you more every second. 
Take your hands off me, please. Be a gentleman — 
if you can.” 


HEART, HAND, POCKETBOOK 


21 


For answer he caught her up close to him, and there 
was no sign of decadent force in the grip of his arms. 
He kissed her; and Hazel, in blind rage, freed one arm, 
and struck at him man fashion, her hand doubled into 
a small fist. By the grace of chance, the blow landed 
on his nose. There was force enough behind it to draw 
blood. He stood back and fumbled for his handker- 
chief. Something that sounded like an oath escaped 
him. 

Hazel stared, aghast, astounded. She was not at all 
sorry; she was perhaps a trifle ashamed. It seemed 
unwomanly to strike. But the humor of the thing ap- 
pealed to her most strongly of all. In spite of her- 
self, she smiled as she reached once more for her hat. 
And this time Mr. Bush did not attempt to restrain 
her. 

She breathed a sigh of relief when she had gained 
the street, and she did not in the least care if her de- 
parture during business hours excited any curosity in 
the main office. Moreover, she was doubly glad to 
be away from Bush. The expression on his face as he 
drew back and stanched his bleeding nose had momen- 
tarily chilled her. 

“ He looked perfectly devilish,” she told herself. 
“ My, I loathe that man I He is dangerous. Marry 
him? The idea!” 

She knew that she must have cut him deeply in a 
man’s tenderest spot — his self-esteem. But just how 
well she had gauged the look and possibilities of Mr. 
Andrew Bush, Hazel scarcely realized. 

“ I won’t tell Jack,” she reflected. “ He’d probably 


22 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


want to thrash him. And that would stir up a lot of 
horrid talk. Dear me, that’s one experience I don’t want 
repeated. I wonder if he made court to his first wife 
in that high-handed, love-me-or-I’ll-beat-you-to-death 
fashion.?* ” 

She laughed when she caught herself scrubbing vig- 
orously with her handkerchief at the place where his 
lips had touched her cheek. She was primitive enough 
in her instincts to feel a trifle glad of having retaliated 
in what her training compelled her to consider a “ per- 
fectly hoydenish ” manner. But she could not deny 
that it had proved wonderfully eff^ective. 


CHAPTER III 


I DO GIVE AND BEQUEATH 

When Jack Barrow called again, which happened 
to be that very evening, Hazel told him simply that she 
had left Harrington & Bush, without entering into any 
explanation except the general one that she had found 
it impossible to get on with Mr. Bush in her new posi- 
tion. And Jack, being more concerned with her than 
with her work, gave the matter scant consideration. 

This was on a Friday. The next forenoon Hazel 
went downtown. When she returned, a little before 
eleven, the maid of aril work was putting the last touches 
to her room. The girl pointed to an oblong package 
on a chair. 

“ That came for you a little while ago. Miss Weir,” 
she said. “ Mr. Bush’s carriage brought it.” 

“ Mr. Bush’s carriage ! ” Hazel echoed. 

“ Yes’m. Regular swell turnout, with a footman in 
brown livery. My, you could see the girls peeking all 
along the square when it stoppecj, at our door. It 
quite flustered the missus.” 

The girl lingered a second, curiosity writ large on 
her countenance. Plainly she wished to discover what 
Miss Hazel Weir would be getting in a package that 
was delivered in so aristocratic a manner. But Hazel 


24 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


was in no mood to gratify any one’s curiosity. She 
was angry at the presumption of Mr. Andrew Bush. It 
was an excellent way of subjecting her to remark. And 
it did not soothe her to recollect that he had threatened 
that very thing. 

She drew off her gloves, and, laying aside her hat, 
picked up a newspaper, and began to read. The girl, 
with no excuse for lingering, reluctantly gathered up 
her broom and dustpan, and departed. When she was 
gone, and not till then. Miss Weir investigated the 
parcel. 

Roses — two dozen long-stemmed La Frances — 
filled the room with their delicate odor when she re- 
moved the pasteboard cover. And set edgewise among 
the stems she found his card. Miss Weir turned up her 
small nose. 

“ I wonder if he sends these as a sort of peace offer- 
ing.? ” she snorted. “ I wonder if a few hours of re- 
flection has made him realize just how exceedingly 
caddish he acted.? Well, Mr. Bush, I’ll return 
your unwelcome gift — though they are beautiful 
flowers.” 

And she did forthwith, squandering forty cents on a 
messenger boy to deliver them to Mr. Bush at his of- 
fice. She wished him to labor under no misappre- 
hension as to her attitude. 

The next day — Sunday — she spent with Jack Bar- 
row on a visit to his cousin in a near-by town. They 
parted, as was their custom, at the door. It was still 
early in the evening — eight-thirty, or thereabout — 
and Hazel went into the parlor on the first floor. Mrs. 


“I DO GIVE AND BEQUEATH” 


25 


Stout and one of her boarders sat there chatting, and 
at Hazel’s entrance the landlady greeted her with a 
startling bit of news: 

“ Evenin’, Miss Weir. ’Ave you ’eard about Mr. 
Bush, pore gentleman ” Mrs. Stout was very Eng- 
lish. 

“Mr. Bush.^^ No. What about him.?*” Hazel re- 
sented Mr. Bush, his name, and his affairs being brought 
to her attention at every turn. She desired nothing 
so much since that scene in the office as to ignore his 
existence. 

“ ’E was ’urt shockin’ bad this awft’noon,” Mrs. 
Stout related. “ Out ’orseback ridin’, and ’is ’orse 
ran away with ’im, and fell on ’im. Fell all of a ’eap, 
they say. Terrible — terrible! The pore man isn’t 
expected to live. ^Is back’s broke, they say. W’at 
a pity! Shockin’ accident, indeed.” 

Miss Weir voiced perfunctory sympathy, as was 
expected of her, seeing that she was an employee of the 
firm — or had been lately. But close upon that she 
escaped to her own room. She did not relish sitting 
there discussing Mr. Andrew Bush. Hazel lacked 
nothing of womanly sympathy, but he had forfeited 
that from her. 

Nevertheless she kept thinking of him long after she 
went to bed. She was not at all vindictive, and his 
misfortune, the fact — if the report were true — that 
he was facing his end, stirred her pity. She could guess 
that he would suffer more than some men ; he would re- 
bel bitterly against anything savoring of extinction. 
And she reflected that his love for her was very likely 


26 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


gone by the board now that he was elected to go the 
way of all flesh. 

The report of his injury was verified in the morning 
papers. By evening it had pretty well passed out of 
Hazel’s mind. She had more pleasant concerns. 
Jack Barrow dropped in about six- thirty to ask if she 
wanted to go with him to a concert during the week. 
They were sitting in the parlor, by a front window, 
chattering to each other, but not so engrossed that 
they failed to notice a carriage drawn by two splendid 
grays pull up at the front gate. The footman, in 
brown livery, got down and came to the door. Hazel 
knew the carriage. She had seen Mr. Andrew Bush 
abroad in it many a time. She wondered if there was 
some further annoyance in store for her, and frowned 
at the prospect. 

She heard Mrs. Stout answer the bell in person. 
There was a low mumble of voices. Then the land- 
lady appeared in the parlor doorway, the footman be- 
hind her. 

“ This is the lady.” Mrs. Stout indicated Hazel. 
‘‘ A message for you. Miss Weir.” 

The liveried person bowed and extended an envelope. 
“ I was instructed to deliver this to you personally,” he 
said, and lingered as if he looked for further instruc- 
tions. 

Hazel looked at the envelope. She could not under- 
stand why, under the circumstances, any message should 
come to her through such a medium. But there was 
her name inscribed. She glanced up. Mrs. Stout 
gazed past the footman with an air of frank anticipa- 


“I DO GIVE AND BEQUEATH” 


27 


tion. Jack also was looking. But the landlady caught 
Hazel’s glance and backed out the door, and Hazel 
opened the letter. 

The note was brief and to the point: 

Miss Weir: Mr. Bush, being seriously injured and 
unable to write, bids me say that he is very anxious to 
see you. He sends his carriage to convey you here. 
His physicians fear that he will not survive the night, 
hence he begs of you to come. Very truly, 

Ethel B. Watson, Nurse in Waiting. 

“ The idea ! Of course I won’t ! I wouldn’t think 
of such a thing ! ” Hazel exclaimed. 

“ Jus# a second,” she said to the footman. 

Over on the parlor mantel lay some sheets of paper 
and envelopes. She borrowed a pencil from Barrow 
and scribbled a brief refusal. The footman departed 
with her answer. Hazel turned to find Jack staring 
his puzzlement. 

“ What did he want ? ” Barrow asked bluntly. 
“ That was the Bush turnout, wasn’t it ? ” 

“ You heard about Mr. Bush getting hurt, didn’t 
you.? ” she inquired. 

“Saw it in the paper. Why?” 

“ Nothing, except that he is supposed to be dying — 
and he wanted to see me. At least — well, read the 
note,” Hazel answered. 

Barrow glanced over the missive and frowned. 

“ What do you suppose he wanted to see you for? ” 
he asked. 

“ How should I know ? ” Hazel evaded. 


28 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


She felt a reluctance to enter into any explanations. 
That would necessitate telling the whole story, and she 
felt some delicacy about relating it when the man in- 
volved lay near to death. Furthermore, Jack might 
misunderstand, might blame her. He was inclined to 
jealousy on slight grounds, she had discovered be- 
fore now. Perhaps that, the natural desire to avoid 
anything disagreeable coming up between them, helped 
constrain her to silence. 

“ Seems funny,” he remarked slowly. 

‘‘ Oh, let’s forget it.” Hazel came and sat down on 
the couch by him. “ I don’t know of any reason why 
he should want to see me. I wouldn’t go merely out of 
curiosity to find out. It was certainly a peculiar re- 
quest for him to make. But that’s no reason why we 
should let it bother us. If he’s really so badly hurt, 
the chances are he’s out of his head. Don’t scowl at 
that bit of paper so, Johnnie-boy.” 

Barrow laughed and kissed her, and the subject was 
dropped forthwith. Later they went out for a short 
walk. In an hour or so Barrow left for home, prom- 
ising to have the concert tickets for Thursday night. 

Hazel took the note out of her belt and read it again 
when she reached her room. Why should he want to 
see her.? She wondered at the man’s persistence. He 
had insulted her, according to her view of it — doubly 
insulted her with threats and an enforced caress. Per- 
haps he merely wanted to beg her pardon ; she had heard 
of men doing such things in their last moments. But 
she could not conceive of Mr. Andrew Bush being sorry 
for anything he did. Her estimate of him was that 


“I DO GIVE AND BEQUEATH” 


29 


his only regret would be over failure to achieve his 
own ends. He struck her as being an individual whose 
own personal desires were paramount. She had heard 
vague stories of his tenacity of purpose, his disregard 
of anything and everybody but himself. The gossip 
she had heard and half forgotten had been recalled and 
confirmed by her own recent experience with him. 

Nevertheless, she considered that particular episode 
closed. She believed that she had convinced him of that. 
And so she could not grasp the reason for that eleventh- 
hour summons. But she could see that a repetition of 
such incidents might put her in a queer light. Other 
folk might begin to wonder and inquire why Mr. Andrew 
Bush took such an ‘‘ interest ” in her — a mere ste- 
nographer. Well, she told herself, she did not care — • 
so long as Jack Barrow’s ears were not assailed by 
talk. She smiled at that, for she could picture the re- 
ception any scandal peddler would get from him. 

The next day’s papers contained the obituary of Mr. 
Andrew Bush. He had died shortly after midnight. 
And despite the fact that she held no grudge. Hazel 
felt a sense of relief. He was powerless to annoy or 
persecute her, and she could not escape the conviction 
that he would have attempted both had he lived. 

She had now been idle a matter of days. Nearly 
three months were yet to elapse before her wedding. 
She and Barrow had compromised on that after a deal 
of discussion. Manlike, he had wished to be married 
as soon as she accepted him, and she had held out for 
a date that would permit her to accumulate a trousseau 
according to her means. 


30 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ A girl only gets married once, Johnnie-boy,” she 
had declared. “ I don’t want to get married so — so 
offhand, like going out and buying a pair of gloves 
or something. Even if I do love you ever so 
much.” 

She had gained her point after a lot of argument. 
There had been no thought then of her leaving Har- 
rington & Bush so abruptly. Jack had wanted to get 
the license as soon as he learned that she had thrown 
up her job. But she refused to reset the date. They 
had made plans for October. There was so sense in 
altering those plans. 

It seemed scarcely worth while to look for another 
position. She had enough money saved to do every- 
thing she wanted to do. It was not so much lack of 
money, the need to earn, as the monotony of idleness 
that irked her. She had acquired the habit of work, 
and that is a thing not lightly shaken off. But during 
that day she gathered together the different Granville 
papers, and went carefully over the “ want ” columns. 
Knowing the town as she did, she was enabled to elim- 
inate the unlikely, undesirable places. Thus by even- 
ing she was armed with a list of firms and individuals 
requiring a stenographer. And in the morning she 
sallied forth. 

Her quest ended with the first place she sought. The 
fact of two years’ service with the biggest firm in Gran- 
ville was ample recommendation ; in addition to which 
the office manager, it developed in their conversation, 
had known her father in years gone by. So before ten 
o’clock Miss Hazel Weir was entered on the pay-roll 


“I DO GIVE AND BEQUEATH” 


31 


of a furniture-manufacturing house. It was not a 
permanent position; one of their girls had been taken 
ill and was likely to take up her duties again in six 
weeks or two months. But that suited Hazel all the 
better. She could put in the time usefully, and have a 
breathing spell before her wedding. 

At noon she telephoned Jack Barrow that she was 
at work again, and she went straight from lunch to the 
office grind. 

Three days went by. Hazel attended the concert 
with Jack the evening of the day Mr. Andrew Bush 
received ostentatious burial. At ten the next morn- 
ing the telephone girl called her. 

“ Some one wants you on the phone. Miss Weir,” she 
said. 

Hazel took up the dangling receiver. 

“ Hello ! ” 

“ That you, Hazel.? ” 

She recognized the voice, half guessing it would be 
he, since no one but Jack Barrow would be likely to 
ring her up. 

“ Surely. Doesn’t it sound like me .? ” 

‘‘ Have you seen the morning papers ? ” 

“ No. What ” 

‘‘ Look ’em over. Particularly the Gazette** 

The harsh rattle of a receiver slammed back on its 
hook without even a “ good-by ” from him struck her 
like a slap in the face. She hung up slowly, and went 
back to her work. Never since their first meeting, 
and they had not been exempt from lovers’ quarrels, 
had Jack Barrow ever spoken to her like that. Even 


32 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


through the telephone the resentful note in his voice 
grated on her and mystified her. 

Something in the papers lay at the bottom of it, 
but she could comprehend nothing, absolutely nothing, 
she told herself hotly, that should make Jack snarl at 
her like that. His very manner of conveying the mes- 
sage was maddening, put her up in arms. 

She was chained to her work — which, despite her 
agitation, she managed to wade through without any 
radical errors — until noon. The twelve-to-one inter- 
mission gave her opportunity to hurry up the street and 
buy a Gazette, Then, instead of going home to her 
luncheon, she entered the nearest restaurant. She 
wanted a chance to read, more than food. She did not 
unfold the paper until she was seated. 

A column heading on the front page caught her eye. 
The caption ran : “ Andrew Bush Leaves Money to 

Stenographer.” And under it the subhead : 
“ Wealthy Manufacturer Makes Peculiar Bequest to 
Miss Hazel Weir.” 

The story ran a full column, and had to do with the 
contents of the will, made public following his inter- 
ment. There was a great deal of matter anent the 
principal beneficiaries. But that which formed the 
basis of the heading was a codicil appended to the will 
a few hours before his death, in which he did ‘‘ give 
and bequeath to Hazel Weir, until lately in my employ, 
the sum of five thousand dollars in reparation for any 
wrong I may have done her.” 

The Gazette had copied that portion verbatim, and 
used it as a peg upon which to hang some adroitly 


“I DO GIVE AND BEQUEATH” 


33 


worded speculation as to what manner of wrong Mr. 
Andrew Bush could have done Miss Hazel Weir. Mr. 
Bush was a widower of ten years’ standing. He had 
no children. There was plenty of room in his life 
for romance. And wealthy business men who wrong 
pretty stenographers are not such an unfamiliar type. 
The Gazette inclined to the yellow side of journalism, 
and it overlooked nothing that promised a sensation. 

Hazel stared at the sheet, and her face burned. She 
could understand now why Jack Barrow had hung up 
his receiver with a slam. She could picture him reading 
that suggestive article and gritting his teeth. Her hands 
clenched till the knuckles stood white under the smooth 
skin, and then quite abruptly she got up and left the 
restaurant even while a waiter hurried to take her order. 
If she had been a man, and versed in profanity, she 
could have cursed Andrew Bush till his soul shuddered 
on its journey through infinite space. Being a woman, 
she wished only a quiet place to cry. 


CHAPTER IV 


AN EXPLANATION DEMANDED 

Hazel’s pride came to her rescue before she was half- 
way home. Instinctively she had turned to that 
refuge, where she could lock herself in her own room 
and cry her protest against it all. But she had done 
no wrong, nothing of which to be ashamed, and when 
the first shock of the news article wore off, she threw 
up her head and refused to consider what the world at 
large might think. So she went back to the office at 
one o’clock and took up her work. Long before even- 
ing she sensed that others had read the Gazette, Not 
that any one mentioned it, but sundry curious glances 
made her painfully aware of the fact. 

Mrs. Stout evidently was on the watch, for she ap- 
peared in the hall almost as the front door closed be- 
hind Hazel. 

“ How de do. Miss Weir.?’ ” she greeted. “ My, but 
you fell into quite a bit of a fortune, ain’t you.^ ” 

“ I only know what the papers say,” Hazel returned 
coldly. 

“ Just fancy! You didn’t know nothing about it? ” 
Mrs. Stout regarded her with frank curiosity. 
“ There’s been two or three gentlemen from the papers 
’ere to-day awskin’ for you. Such terrible fellows to 
quiz one, they are.’^ 


AN EXPLANATION DEMANDED 35 


“WeU?” Hazel filled in the pause. 

“ Oh, I just thought I’d tell you,” Mrs. Stout ob- 
served, “ that they got precious little out o’ Tne, I 
ain’t the talkin’ kind. I told ’em nothink whatever, 
you may be sure.” 

“ They’re perfectly welcome to learn all that can be 
learned about me,” Hazel returned quietly. “ I don’t 
like newspaper notoriety, but I can’t muzzle the papers, 
and it’s easy for them to get my whole history if they 
want it.” 

She was on the stairs when she finished speaking. 
She had just reached the first landing when she heard 
the telephone bell, and a second or two later the land- 
lady called: 

“ Oh, Miss Weir ! Telephone.” 

Barrow’s voice hailed her over the line. 

“ I’ll be out by seven,” said he. “ We had better 
take a walk. We can’t talk in the parlor; there’ll 
probably be a lot of old tabbies there out of sheer 
curiosity.” 

“ All right,” Hazel agreed, and hung up. There 
were one or two questions she would have liked to ask, 
but she knew that eager ears were close by, taking in 
every word. Anyway, it was better to wait until she 
saw him. 

She dressed herself. Unconsciously the truly fem- 
inine asserted its dominance — the woman anxious to 
please and propitiate her lover. She put on a dainty 
summer dress, rearranged her hair, powdered away all 
trace of the tears that insisted on coming as soon as 
she reached the sanctuary of her own room. And then 


36 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


she watched for jack from a window that commanded 
the street. She had eaten nothing since morning, and 
the dinner bell rang unheeded. It did not occur to 
her that she was hungry ; her brain was engrossed with 
other matters more important by far than food. 

Barrow appearad at last. She went down to meet 
him before he rang the bell. Just behind him came a 
tall man in a gray suit. This individual turned in at 
the gate, bestowing a nod upon Barrow and a keen 
glance at her as he passed. 

“ That’s Grinell, from the Times,''^ Barrow muttered 
sourly. “ Come on ; let’s get away from here. I sup- 
pose he’s after you for an interview. Everybody in 
Granville’s talking about that legacy, it seems to 
me.” 

Hazel turned in beside him silently. Right at the 
start she found herself resenting Barrow’s tone, his 
manner. She had done nothing to warrant suspicion 
from him. But she loved him, and she hoped she could 
convince him that it was no more than a passing un- 
pleasantness, for which she was nowise to blame. 

“ Hang it ! ” Barrow growled, before they had trav- 
ersed the first block. “ Here comes Grinell ! I sup- 
pose that old cat of a landlady pointed us out. No 
dodging him now.” 

“ There’s no earthly reason why I should dodge him, 
as you put it,” Hazel replied stiffly. “ I’m not an 
escaped criminal.” 

Barrow shrugged his shoulders in a way that made 
Hazel bring her teeth together and want to shake 
him. 


AN EXPLANATION DEMANDED 37 

Grinell by then was hurrying up with long strides. 
Hat in hand, he bowed to her. “ Miss Hazel Weir, 
I believe.? ” he interrogated. 

“ Yes,” she confirmed. 

‘‘ I’m on the Times, Miss Weir,” Grinell went 
straight to the business in hand. “ You are aware, I 
presume, that Mr. Andrew Bush willed you a sum of 
money under rather peculiar conditions — that is, the 
bequest was worded in a peculiar way. Probably you 
have seen a reference to it in the papers. It has caused 
a great deal of interest. The Times would be pleased 
to have a statement from you which will tend to set 
at rest the curiosity of the public. Some of the other 
papers have indulged in unpleasant innuendo. We 
would be pleased to publish your side of the matter. 
It would be an excellent way for you to quiet the nasty 
rumors that are going the rounds.” 

“ I have no statement to make,” Hazel said coolly. 
“ I am not in the least concerned with what the papers 
print or what the people say. I absolutely refuse to 
discuss the matter.” 

Grinell continued to point out — with the persist- 
ence and persuasive logic of a good newspaper man 
bent on learning what his paper wants to know — the 
desirability of her giving forth a statement. And in 
the midst of his argument Hazel bade him a curt “ good 
evening ” and walked on. Barrow kept step with her. 
Grinell gave it up for a bad job evidently, for he 
turned back. 

They walked five blocks without a word. Hazel 
glanced at Barrow now and then, and observed with an 


38 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


uncomfortable sinking of her heart that he was sullen, 
openly resentful, suspicious. 

“ Johnnie-boy,” she said suddenly, “ don’t look so 
cross. Surely you don’t blame me because Mr. Bush 
wills me a sum of money in a way that makes people 
wonder? ” 

“ I can’t understand it at all,” he said slowly. It’s 
very peculiar — and deucedly unpleasant. Why 
should he leave you money at all? And why should he 
word the will as he did? What wrong did he ever do 
you ? ” 

“ None,” Hazel answered shortly. His tone wounded 
her, cut her deep, so eloquent was it of distrust. The 
only wrong he has done me lies in willing me that money 
as he did.” 

“ But there’s an explanation for that,” Barrow de- 
clared moodily. “ There’s a key to the mystery, and 
if anybody has it you have. What is it ? ” 

‘‘ Jack,” Hazel pleaded, “ don’t take that tone with 
me. I can’t stand it — I won’t. I’m not a little child 
to be scolded and browbeaten. This morning when you 
telephoned you were almost insulting, and it hurt me 
dreadfully. You’re angry now, and suspicious. You 
seem to think I must have done some dreadful thing. 
I know what you’re thinking. The Gazette hinted at 
some ‘ affair ’ between me and Mr. Bush; that possibly 
that was a sort of left-handed reparation for ruining 
me. If that didn’t make me angry, it would amuse me 
— it’s so absurd. Haven’t you any faith in me at all? 
I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. I’ve got 
nothing to conceal.” 


AN EXPLANATION DEMANDED 30 


“ Don’t conceal it, then,” Barrow muttered sulkily. 
‘‘ I’ve got a right to know whatever there is to know if 
I’m going to marry you. You don’t seem to have any 
idea what this sort of talk that’s going around means 
to a man.” 

Hazel stopped short and faced him. Her heart 
pounded sickeningly, and hurt pride and rising anger 
choked her for an instant. But she managed to speak 
calmly, perhaps with added calmness by reason of the 
struggle she was compelled to make for self-control. 

If you are going to marry me,” she repeated, “ you 
have got a right to know all there is to know. Have I 
refused to explain.? I haven’t had much chance to 
explain yet. Have I refused to tell you anything.? 
If you ever thought of anybody beside yourself, you 
might be asking yourself how all this talk would affect 
a girl like me. And, besides, I think from your manner 
that you’ve already condemned me — for what .? 
Would any reasonable explanation make an impression 
on you in your present frame of mind.? I don’t want 
to marry you if you can’t trust me. Why, I couldn’t 
— I wouldn’t — marry you any time, or any place, 
under those conditions, no matter how much I may fool- 
ishly care for you.” 

“ There’s just one thing. Hazel,” Barrow persisted 
stubbornly. “ There must have been something be- 
tween you and Bush. He sent flowers to you, and I 
myself saw when he was hurt he sent his carriage to 
bring you to his house. And then he leaves you this 
money. There was something between you, and I want 
to know what it was. You’re not helping yourself by 


40 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


getting on your dignity and talking about my not trust- 
ing you instead of explaining these things.” 

“ A short time ago,” Hazel told him quietly, ‘‘ Mr. 
Bush asked me to marry him. I refused, of course. 
He —” 

“You refused!” Barrow interrupted cynically. 
“ Most girls would have jumped at the chance.” 

“Jack!” she protested. 

“ Well,” Barrow defended, “ he was almost a mil- 
lionaire, and I’ve got nothing but my hands and my 
brain. But suppose you did refuse him. How does 
that account for the five thousand dollars ” 

“ I think,” Hazel flung back passionately, “ I’ll let 
you find that out for yourself. You’ve said enough 
now to make me hate you almost. Your very manner’s 
an insult.” 

“ If you don’t like my manner — ” Barrow retorted 
stormily. Then he cut his sentence in two, and glared 
at her. Her eyes glistened with slow-welling tears, and 
she bit nervously at her under lip. Barrow shrugged 
his shoulders. The twin devils of jealousy and dis- 
trust were riding him hard, and it flashed over Hazel 
that in his mind she was prejudged, and that her ex- 
planation, if she made it, would only add fuel to the 
flame. Moreover, she stood in open rebellion at be- 
ing, so to speak, put on the . rack. 

She turned abruptly and left him. What did it 
matter, anyway.? She was too proud to plead, and it 
was worse than useless to explain. 

Even so, womanlike, she listened, expecting to hear 
Jack’s step hurrying up behind. She could not imag- 


AN EXPLANATION DEMANDED 41 

ine him letting her go like that. But he did not come, 
and when, at a distance of two blocks, she stole a back- 
ward glance, he had disappeared. 

She returned to the boarding-house. The parlor 
door stood wide, and the curious, quickly averted glance 
of a girl she knew sent her quivering up to her room. 
Safe in that refuge, she sat down by the window, with 
her chin on her palms, struggling with the impulse to 
cry, protesting with all her young strength against 
the bitterness that had come to her through no fault of 
her own. There was only one cheerful gleam. She 
loved Jack Barrow. She believed that he loved her, 
and she could not believe — she could not conceive — 
him capable of keeping aloof, obdurate and unforgiv- 
ing, once he got out of the black mood he was in. Then 
she could snuggle up close to him and tell him how and 
why Mr. Andrew Bush had struck at her from his death- 
bed. 

She was still sitting by the window, watching the 
yellow crimson of the sunset, when some one rapped at 
her door. A uniformed messenger boy greeted her 
when she opened it : 

Package for Miss Hazel Weir.” 

She signed his delivery sheet. The address on the 
package was in. Jack’s handwriting. A box of choco- 
lates, or some little peace offering, maybe. That was 
like Jack when he was sorry for anything. They had 
quarreled before — over trifles, too. 

She opened it hastily. A swift heart sinking fol- 
lowed. In the small cardboard box rested a folded 
scarf, and thrust in it a small gold stickpin — the only 


42 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


thing she had ever given Jack Barrow. There was no 
message. She needed none to understand. 

The sparkle of the small diamond on her finger drew 
her gaze. She worked his ring over the knuckle, and 
dropped it on the dresser, where the face in the silver 
frame smiled up at her. She stared at the picture for 
one long minute fixedly, with unchanging expression, 
and suddenly she swept it from the dresser with a sav- 
age sweep of her hand, dashed it on the floor, and 
stamped it shapeless with her slippered heel. 

“ Oh, oh ! ” she gasped. “ I hate you — I hate you ! 
I despise you ! ” 

And then she flung herself across the bed and sobbed 
hysterically into a pillow. 


CHAPTER V 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD AT LARGE 

Through the night Hazel dozed fitfully, waking out 
of uneasy sleep to lie staring, wide-eyed, into the dark, 
every nerve in her body taut, her mind abnormally ac- 
tive. She tried to accept things philosophically, but 
her philosophy failed. There was a hurt, the pain of 
which she could not ease by any mental process. Grief 
and anger by turns mastered her, and at daybreak she 
rose, heavy-lidded and physically weary. 

The first thing upon which her gaze alighted was the 
crumpled photo in its shattered frame; and, sitting on 
the side of her bed, she laughed at the sudden fury in 
which she had destroyed it; but there was no mirth in 
her laughter. 

“ ‘ Would we not shatter it to little bits — and then,’ ” 
she murmured. “ No, Mr. John Barrow, I don’t be- 
lieve I’d want to mold you nearer to my heart’s desire. 
Not after yesterday evening. There’s such a thing as 
being hurt so badly that one finally gets numb; and 
one always shrinks from anything that can deliver such 
a hurt. Well, it’s another day. And there’ll be lots 
of other days, I suppose.” 

She gathered up the bits of broken glass and the bent 
frame, and put them in a drawer, dressed herself, and 
went down to breakfast. She was too deeply engrossed 


44 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


in her own troubles to notice or care whether any subtle 
change was becoming manifest in the attitude of her fel- 
low boarders. The worst, she felt sure, had already 
overtaken her. In reaction to the sensitive, shrinking 
mood of the previous day, a spirit of defiance had taken 
possession of her. Figuratively she declared that the 
world could go to the devil, and squared her shoulders 
with the declaration. 

She had a little time to spare, and that time she 
devoted to making up a package of Barrow’s ring and 
a few other trinkets which he had given her. This she 
addressed to his ofiice and posted while on her way to 
work. 

She got through the day somehow, struggling 
against thoughts that would persist in creeping into 
her mind and stirring up emotions that she was de- 
termined to hold in check. Work, she knew, was her 
only salvation. If she sat idle, thinking, the tears 
would come in spite of her, and a horrible, choky feel- 
ing in her throat. She set her teeth and thumped away 
at her machine, grimly vowing that Jack Barrow nor 
any other man should make her heart ache for long. 

And so she got through the week. Saturday even- 
ing came, and she went home, dreading Sunday’s idle- 
ness, with its memories. The people at Mrs. Stout’s 
establishment, she plainly saw, were growing a trifle 
shy of her. She had never been on terms of intimacy 
with any of them during her stay there, hence their at- 
titude troubled little after the first supersensitiveness 
wore off. But her own friends, girls with whom she 
had played in the pinafore-and-pigtail stages of her 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD 


45 


youth, young men who had paid court to her until Jack 
Barrow monopolized her — she did not know how they 
stood. She had seen none of them since Bush launched 
his last bolt. Barrow she had passed on the street just 
once, and when he lifted his hat distantly, she looked 
straight ahead, and ignored him. Whether she hurt 
him as much as she did herself by the cut direct would 
be hard to say. 

On Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons or- 
dinarily from two to a dozen girl friends called her up 
at the boarding-house, or dropped in by ones and twos 
to chat a while, tease her about Jack, or plan some mild 
frivolity. Hazel went home, wondering if they, too, 
would stand aloof. 

When Sunday noon arrived, and the phone had failed 
to call her once, and not one of all her friends had 
dropped in. Hazel twisted her chair so that she could 
stare at the image of herself in the mirror. 

“ You’re in a fair way to become a pariah, it seems,” 
she said bitterly. “ What have you done, I wonder, 
that you’ve lost your lover, and that Alice and May 
and Hortense and all the rest of them keep away from 
you.? Nothing — not a thing — except that your 
looks attracted a man, and the man threw stones when 
he couldn’t have his way. Oh, well, what’s the differ- 
ence.? You’ve got two good hands, and you’re not 
afraid of work.” 

She walked out to Granville Park after luncheon, 
and found a seat on a shaded bench beside the lake. 
People passed and repassed — couples, youngsters, old 
people, children. It made her lonely beyond measure. 


46 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


She had never been isolated among her own kind before. 
She could not remember a time when she had gone to 
Granville Park by herself. But she was learning fast 
to stand on her own feet. 

A group of young people came sauntering along the 
path. Hazel looked up as they neared her, chattering 
to each other. Maud Steele and Bud Wells, and — 
why, she knew every one of the party. They were 
swinging an empty picnic basket, and laughing at every- 
thing and nothing. Hazel caught her breath as they 
came abreast, not over ten feet away. The three young 
men raised their hats self-consciously. 

“ Hello, Hazel ! ” the girl said. 

But they passed on. It seemed to Hazel that they 
quickened their pace a trifle. It made her grit her 
teeth in resentful anger. Ten minutes later she left 
the park and caught a car home. Once in her room 
she broke down. 

“ Oh, I’ll go mad if I stay here and this sort of thing 
goes on ! ” she cried forlornly. 

A sudden thought struck her. 

“ Why should I stay here.^^ ” she said aloud. “ Why? 
What’s to keep me here? I can make my living any- 
where.” 

“ But, no,” she asserted passionately, “ I won’t run 
away. That would be running away, and I haven’t 
anytliing to be ashamed of. I will not run.” 

Still the idea kept recurring to her. It promised 
relief from the hurt of averted faces and coolness where 
she had a right to expect sympathy and friendship. 
She had never been more than two hundred miles from 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD 


47 


Granville in her life. But she knew that a vast, rich 
land spread south and west. She was human and thor- 
oughly feminine; loneliness appalled her, and she had 
never suffered as Granville at large was making her 
suffer. 

The legal notice of the bequest was mailed to her. 
She tore up the letter and threw it in the fire as if it 
were some poisonous thing. The idea of accepting his 
money stirred her to a perfect frenzy. That was piling 
it up. 

All during the next week she worked at her machine 
in the office of the furniture company, keeping strictly 
to herself, doing her work impassively, efficiently, be- 
traying no sign of the feelings that sometimes rose up, 
the despairing protest and angry rebellion against the 
dubious position she was in through no fault of her own. 
She swore she would not leave Granville, and it galled 
her to stay. It was a losing fight, and she knew it 
even if she did not admit the fact. If she could have 
poured the whole miserable tale into some sympathetic 
ear she would have felt better, and each day would 
have seemed less hard. But there was no such ear. 
Her friends kept away. 

Saturday of the second week her pay envelope con- 
tained a brief notice that the firm no longer required 
her services. There was no explanation, only perfunc- 
tory regrets; and, truth to tell. Hazel cared little to 
know the real cause. Any one of a number of reasons 
might have been sufficient. But she realized how those 
who knew her would take it, what cause they would 
ascribe. It did not matter, though. The very worst, 


48 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


she reasoned, could not be so bad as what had already 
happened — could be no more disagreeable than the 
things she had endured in the past two weeks. Losing 
a position was a trifle. But it set her thinking again. 

“ It doesn’t seem to be a case of flight,” she reflected 
on her way home, “ so much as a case of being frozen 
out, compelled to go. I can’t stay here and be idle. 
I have to work in order to live. Well, I’m not gone 
yet.” 

She stopped at a news stand and bought the evening 
papers. Up in the top rack of the stand the big heads 
of an assorted lot of Western papers caught her eye. 
She bought two or three on the impulse of the moment, 
without any definite purpose except to look them over 
out of mere curiosity. With these tucked under her 
arm, she turned into the boarding-house gate, ran up 
the steps, and, upon opening the door, her ears were 
gladdened by the first friendly voice she had heard — 
it seemed to her — in ages, a voice withal that she had 
least expected to hear. A short, plump woman rushed 
out of the parlor, and precipitated herself bodily upon 
Hazel. 

“ Kitty Ryan ! Where in the wide, wide world did 
you come from.? ” Hazel cried. 

“ From the United States and everywhere,” Miss 
Ryan replied. “ Take me up to your room, dear, 
where we can talk our heads off. 

“And, furthermore, Hazie, I’ll be pleased to have 
you address me as Mrs. Brooks, my dear young 
woman,” the plump lady laughed, as she settled her- 
self in a chair in Hazel’s room. 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD 


49 


“ So you’re married? ” Hazel said. 

“ I am that,” Mrs. Kitty responded emphatically, 
“ to the best boy that ever drew breath. And so should 
you be, dear girl. I don’t see how you’ve escaped so 
long — a good-looking girl like you. The boys were 
always crazy after you. There’s nothing like having 
a good man to take care of you, dear.” 

‘‘ Heaven save me from them ! ” Hazel answered bit- 
terly. If you’ve got a good one, you’re lucky. I 
can’t see them as anything but self-centered, arrogant, 
treacherous brutes.” 

“ Lord bless us — it’s worse than I thought ! ” 
Kitty jumped up and threw her arms around Hazel. 
“ There, there — don’t waste a tear on them. I know 
all about it. I came over to see you just as soon as 
some of the girls — nasty little cats they are ; a 
woman’s always meaner than a man, dear — just as 
soon as they gave me an inkling of how things were go- 
ing with you. Pshaw! The world’s full of good, de- 
cent fellows — and you’ve got one coming.” 

“ I hope not,” Hazel protested. 

“ Oh, yes, you have,” Mrs. Brooks smilingly assured 
her. A woman without a man is only half a human 
being, an3rway, you know — and vice versa. I know. 
We can cuss the men all we want to, my dear, and some 
of us unfortunately have a nasty experience with one 
now and then. But we can’t get away from the funda- 
mental laws of being.” 

“ If you’d had my experience of the last two weeks 
you’d sing a different tune,” Hazel vehemently declared. 
“ I hate — I — ” 


50 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


And then she gave way, and indulged in the luxury 
of turning herself loose on Kitty’s shoulder. Pres- 
ently she was able to wipe her eyes and relate the whole 
story from the Sunday Mr. Bush stopped and spoke 
to her in the park down to that evening. 

Kitty nodded understandingly. “ But the girls 
have handed it to you worse than the men, Hazel,” she 
observed sagely. ‘‘Jack Barrow was just plain crazy 
jealous, and a man like that can’t help acting as he did. 
You’re really fortunate, I think, because you’d not be 
really happy with a man like that. But the girls that 
you and I grew up with — they should have stood by 
you, knowing you as they did; yet you see they were 
ready to think the worst of you. They nearly always 
do when there’s a man in the case. That’s a weakness 
of our sex, dear. My, what a vindictive old Turk that 
Bush must have been ! Well, you aren’t working. 
Come and stay with me. Hubby’s got a two-year con- 
tract with the World Advertising Company. We’ll be 
located here that long at least. Come and stay with 
us. We’ll show these little-minded folk a thing or 
two. Leave it to us.” 

“ Oh, no, I couldn’t think of that, Kitty ! ” Hazel 
faltered. “ You know I’d love to, and it’s awfully good 
of you, but I think I’m just about ready to go away 
from Granville.” 

“ Well, come and stop with us till you do go,” Kitty 
insisted. “We are going to take a furnished cottage 
for a while. Though, between you and me, dear, 
knowing people as I do, I can’t blame you for wanting 
to be where their nasty tongues can’t wound you.” 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD 


51 


But Hazel was obdurate. She would not inflict her- 
self on the one friend she had left. And Kitty, after 
a short talk, berated her affectionately for her inde- 
pendence, and rose to go. 

“ For,” said she, “ I didn’t get hold of this thing till 
Addie Horton called at the hotel this afternoon, and I 
didn’t stop to think that it was near teatime, but came 
straight here. Jimmie’ll think I’ve eloped. So ta-ta. 
I’ll come out to-morrow about two. I have to confab 
with a house agent in the forenoon. By-by.” 

Hazel sat down and actually smiled when Kitty was 
gone. Somehow a grievous burden had fallen off her 
mind. Likewise, by some psychological quirk, the idea 
of leaving Granville and making her home elsewhere no 
longer struck her as running away under fire. She did 
not wish to subject Kitty Brooks to the difficulties, the 
embarrassment that might arise from having her as 
a guest; but the mere fact that Kitty stood stanchly 
by her made the world seem less harsh and dreary, made 
it seem as if she had, in a measure, justified herself. 
She felt that she could adventure forth among strangers 
in a strange country with a better heart, knowing that 
Kitty Brooks would put a swift quietus on any gossip 
that came her way. 

So that Hazel went down to the dining-room light- 
heartedly, and when the meal was finished came back 
and fell to reading her papers. The first of the West- 
ern papers was a Vancouver World. In a real-estate 
mpan’s half-page she found a diminutive sketch plan 
of the city on the shores of Burrard Inlet, Canada’s 
principal outpost on the far Pacific. 


52 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


It’s quite a big place,” she murmured absently. 
“ One would be far enough away there, goodness 
knows.” 

Then she turned to the “ Help Wanted ” advertise- 
ments. The thing which impressed her quickly and 
most vividly was the dearth of demand for clerks and 
stenographers, and the repeated calls for domestic help 
and such. Domestic service she shrank from except 
as a last resort. And down near the bottom of the 
column she happened on an inquiry for a school-teacher, 
female preferred, in an out-of-the-way district in the 
interior of the province. 

“Now, that — ” Hazel thought. 

She had a second-class certificate tucked away among 
her belongings. Originally it had been her intention 
to teach, and she had done so one term in a backwoods 
school when she was eighteen. With the ending of the 
term she had returned to Granville, studied that winter, 
and got her second certificate ; but at the same time she 
had taken a business-college course, and the following 
June found her clacking a typewriter at nine dollars 
a week. And her teacher’s diploma had remained in 
the bottom of her trunk ever since. 

“ I could teach, I suppose, by rubbing up a little 
on one or two subjects as I went along,” she reflected. 
“ I wonder now — ” 

What she wondered was how much salary she could 
expect, and she took up the paper again, and looked 
carefully for other advertisements calling for teachers. 
In the World and in a Winnipeg paper she found one 
or two vacancies to fill out the fall term, and gathered 


/ 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD 


53 


that Western schools paid from fifty to sixty dollars 
a month for “ schoolma’ams ” with certificates such as 
she held. 

“ Why not ” she asked herself. ‘‘ I’ve got two re- 
sources. If I can’t get office work I can teach. I can 
do anything if I have to. And it’s far enough away, 
in all conscience — all of twenty-five hundred miles.” 

Unaccountably, since Kitty Brooks’ visit, she found 
herself itching to turn her back on Granville and its 
unpleasant associations. She did not attempt to ana- 
lyze the feeling. Strange lands, and most of all the 
West, held alluring promise. She sat in her rocker, 
and could not help but dream of places where people 
were a little broader gauge, a little less prone to narrow, 
conventional judgments. Other people had done as 
she proposed doing — cut loose from their established 
environment, and made a fresh start in countries where 
none knew or cared whence they came or who they were. 
Why not she.?^ One thing was certain: Granville, for 
all she had been born there, and grown to womanhood 
there, was now no place for her. The very people who 
knew her best would make her suffer most. 

She spent that evening going thoroughly over the 
papers and writing letters to various school boards, 
taking a chance at one or two she found in the Mani- 
toba paper, but centering her hopes on the country 
west of the Rockies. Her letters finished, she took 
stock of her resources — verified them, rather, for she 
had not so much money that she did not know almost 
where she stood. Her savings in the^ bank amounted 
to three hundred odd dollars, and cash in hand brought 


54 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


the sum to a total of three hundred and sixty-five. At 
any rate, she had sufficient to insure her living for 
quite a long time. And she went to bed feeling better 
than she had felt for two weeks. 

Kitty Brooks came again the next afternoon, and, 
being a young woman of wide experience and good 
sense, made no further attempt to influence Hazel one 
way or the other. 

“ I hate to see you go, though,” she remarked truth- . 
fully. “ But you’ll like the West — if it happens that 
you go there. You’ll like it better than the East ; 
there’s a different sort of spirit among the people. 
I’ve traveled over some of it, and if Jimmie’s business 
permitted we’d both like to live there. And — getting 
down to strictly practical things — a girl can make a 
much better living there. Wages are high. And — 
who knows ? — you might capture a cattle king.” 

Hazel shrugged her shoulders, and Mrs. Kitty for- 
bore teasing. After that they gossiped and compared 
notes covering the two years since they had met until 
it was time for Kitty to go home. 

Very shortly thereafter — almost, it seemed, by re- 
turn mail — Hazel got replies to her letters of inquiry. 
The fact that each and every one seemed bent on secur- 
ing her services astonished her. 

“ Schoolma’ams must certainly be scarce out there,” 
she told herself. “ This is an embarrassment of riches. 
I’m going somewhere, but which place shall it be ? ” 

But the reply from Cariboo Meadows, B. C., the 
first place she had thought of, decided her. The mem- 
ber of the school board who replied held forth the 


THE WAY OF THE WORLD 


55 


natural beauty of the country as much as he did the 
advantages of the position. The thing that perhaps 
made the strongest appeal to Hazel was a little kodak 
print inclosed in the letter, showing the schoolhouse. 

The building itself was primitive enough, of logs, 
with a pole-and-sod roof. But it was the huge back- 
ground, the timbered mountains rising to snow-clad 
heights against a cloudless sky, that attracted her. 
She had never seen a greater height of land than the 
rolling hills of Ontario. Here was a frontier, big and 
new and raw, holding out to her as she stared at the 
print a promise — of what.?* She did not know. Ad- 
venture.? If she desired adventure, it was purely a 
subconscious desire. But she had lived in a rut a long 
time without realizing it more than vaguely, and there 
was something in her nature that responded instantly 
when she contemplated journeying alone into a far 
country. She found herself hungering for change, for 
a measure of freedom from petty restraints, for elbow- 
room in the wide spaces, where one’s neighbor might 
be ten or forty miles away. She knew nothing what- 
ever of such a life, but she could feel a certain envy of 
those who led it. 

She sat for a long time looking at the picture, think- 
ing. Here was the concrete, visible presentment of 
something that drew her strongly. She found an atlas, 
and looked up Cariboo Meadows on the map. It was 
not to be found, and Hazel judged it to be a purely 
local name. But the letter told her that she would have 
to stage it a hundred and sixty-five miles north from 
Ashcroft, B. C., where the writer would meet her and 


S6 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


drive her to the Meadows. She located the stage-line 
terminal on the map, and ran her forefinger over the 
route. Mountain and lake and stream lined and dotted 
and criss-crossed the province from end to end of its 
seven-hundred-mile length. Back of where Cariboo 
Meadows should be three or four mining camps snuggled 
high in the mountains. 

“ What a country ! ” she whispered. It’s wild ; 
really, truly wild; and everything I’ve ever seen has 
been tamed and smoothed down, and made eminently 
respectable and conventional long ago. That’s the 
place. That’s where I’m going, and I’m going it blind. 
I’m not going to tell any one — not even Kitty — until, 
like a bear, I’ve gone over the mountain to see what I 
can see.” 

Within an hour of that Miss Hazel Weir had written 
to accept the terms offered by the Cariboo Meadows 
school district, and was busily packing her trunk. 


CHAPTER VI 


CAEIBOO MEADOWS 

A tall man, sunburned, slow-speaking, met Hazel at 
Soda Creek, the end of her stage journey, introducing 
himself as Jim Briggs. 

“ Pretty tiresome trip, ain’t it? ” he observed. 
‘‘ You’ll have a chance to rest decent to-night, and I 
got a team uh bays that’ll yank yuh to the Meadows 
in four hours ’n’ a half. My wife’ll be plumb tickled 
to have yuh. They ain’t much more’n half a dozen 
white women in ten miles uh the Meadows. We keep 
a boardin’-house. Hope you’ll like the country.” 

That was a lengthy speech for Jim Briggs, as Hazel 
discovered when she rolled out of Soda Creek behind 
the “ team uh bays.” His conversation was decidedly 
monosyllabic. But he could drive, if he was no talker, 
and his team could travel. The road, albeit rough in 
spots, a mere track through timber and little gems of 
open where the yellowing grass waved knee-high, and 
over hills which sloped to deep canons lined with pine 
and spruce, seemed short enough. And so by eleven 
o’clock Hazel found herself at Cariboo Meadows. 

“ Schoolhouse’s over yonder.” Briggs pointed out 
the place — an unnecessary guidance, for Hazel had al- 
ready marked the building set off by itself and fortified 


58 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


with a tall flagpole. “ And here’s where we live. 
Kinda out uh the world, but blame good place to live.” 

Hazel did like the place. Her first impression was 
thankfulness that her lot had been cast in such a spot. 
But it was largely because of the surroundings, essen- 
tially primitive, the clean air, guiltless of smoke taint, 
the aromatic odors from the forest that ranged for un- 
ending miles on every hand. For the first time in her 
life, she was beyond hearing of the clang of street 
cars, the roar of traffic, the dirt and smells of a city. 
It seemed good. She had no regrets, no longing to be 
back. There was a pain sometimes, when in spite of 
herself she would fall to thinking of Jack Barrow. But 
that she looked upon as a closed chapter. He had 
hurt her where a woman can be most deeply wounded 
— in her pride and her affections — and the hurt was 
dulled by the smoldering resentment that thinking of 
him always fanned to a flame. Miss Hazel Weir was 
neither meek nor mild, even if her environment had bred 
in her a repression that had become second nature. 

So with the charm of the wild land fresh upon her, 
she took kindly to Cariboo Meadows. The immediate, 
disagreeable past bade fair to become as remote in 
reality as the distance made it seem. Surely no ghosts 
would walk here to make people look askance at her. 

Her first afternoon she spent loafing on the porch of 
the Briggs domicile, within which Mrs. Briggs, a fat, 
good-natured person of forty, toiled at her cooking 
for the “ boarders,” and kept a brood of five tumultuous 
youngsters in order — the combined tasks leaving her 
scant time to entertain her newly arrived guest. From 


CARIBOO MEADOWS 


5 ^ 


the vantage ground of the porch Hazel got her first 
glimpse of the turns life occasionally takes when there 
is no policeman just around the corner. 

Cariboo Meadows, as a town, was simply a double 
row of buildings facing each other across a wagon road. 
Two stores, a blacksmith shop, a feed stable, certain 
other nondescript buildings, and a few dwellings, mostly 
of logs, was all. Probably not more than a total of 
fifty souls made permanent residence there. But the 
teams of ranchers stood in the street, and a few saddled 
cow ponies whose listlessness was mostly assumed. Be- 
fore one of the general stores a prospector fussed with 
a string of pack horses. Directly opposite Briggs’ 
boarding-house stood a building labeled Regent 
Hotel.” Hazel could envisage it all with a half turn 
of her head. 

From this hotel there presently issued a young man 
dressed in the ordinary costume of the country — wide 
hat, flannel shirt, overalls, boots. He sat down on a 
box close by the hotel entrance. In a few minutes 
another came forth. He walked past the first a few 
steps, stopped, and said something. Hazel could not 
hear the words. The first man was filling a pipe. Ap- 
parently he made no reply ; at least, he did not trouble 
to look up. But she saw his shoulders lift in a shrug. 
Then he who had passed turned square about and spoke 
again, this time lifting his voice a trifle. The young 
fellow sitting on the box instantly became galvanized 
into action. He flung out an oath that carried across 
the street and made Hazel’s ears burn. At the same 
time he leaped from his seat straight at the other man. 


6o 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Hazel saw it quite distinctly, saw him who jumped 
dodge a vicious blow and close with the other ; and saw, 
moreover, something which amazed her. For the young 
fellow swayed with his adversary a second or two, then 
lifted him bodily off his feet almost to the level of his 
head, and slammed him against the hotel wall with a 
sudden twist. She heard the thump of the body on 
the logs. For an instant she thought him about to 
jump with his booted feet on the prostrate form, and 
involuntarily she held her breath. But he stepped back, 
and when the other scrambled up, he side-stepped the 
first rush, and knocked the man down again with a 
blow of his fist. This time he stayed down. Then 
other men — three or four of them — came out of the 
hotel, stood uncertainly a few seconds, and Hazel heard 
the young fellow say: 

“ Better take that fool in and bring him to. If he’s 
still hungry for trouble. I’ll be right handy. I wonder 
how many more of you fellers I’ll have to lick before 
you’ll get wise enough not to start things you can’t 
stop ? ” 

They supported the unconscious man through the 
doorway; the young fellow resumed his seat on the 
box, also his pipe filling. 

“ Roarin’ Bill’s goin’ to get himself killed one uh 
these days.” 

Hazel started, but it was only Jim Briggs in the 
doorway beside her, 

“ I guess you ain’t much used to seein’ that sort of 
exhibition where you come from. Miss Weir,” Briggs’ 
wife put in over his shoulder. “ My land, it’s dis- 


CARIBOO MEADOWS 


6i 


gustin’ — men fightin’ in the street where everybody 
can see ’em. Thank goodness, it don’t happen very 
often. ’Specially when Bill WagstafF ain’t around. 
You ain’t shocked, are you, honey ” 

‘‘ Why, I didn’t have time to be shocked,” Hazel 
laughed. “ It was done so quickly.” 

“ If them fellers would leave Bill alone,” Briggs re- 
marked, “ there wouldn’t be no fight. But he goes off 
like a hair-trigger gun, and he’d scrap a dozen quick 
as one. I’m lookin’ to see his finish one uh these days.” 

What a name ! ” Hazel observed, caught by the ap- 
pellation Briggs had first used. “ Is that Roaring Bill 
over there ” 

“ That’s him — Roarin’ Bill Wagstaff,” Briggs 
answered. ‘‘ If he takes a few drinks, you’ll find out 
to-night how he got the name. Sings — just like a 
bull moose — hear him all over town. Probably whip 
two or three men before mornin’.” 

His spouse calling him at that moment, Briggs de- 
tailed no more information about Roaring Bill. And 
Hazel sat looking across the way with considerable 
interest at the specimen of a type which hitherto she 
had encountered in the pages of fiction — a fighting 
man, what the West called a “ bad actor.” She had, 
however, no wish for closer study of that particular 
type. The men of her world had been altogether dif- 
ferent, and the few frontier specimens she had met at 
the Briggs’ dinner table had not impressed her with any- 
thing except their shyness and manifest awkwardness 
in her presence. The West itself appealed to her, its 
bigness, its nearness to the absolutely primeval, but 


62 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

not the people she had so far met. They were not 
wrapped in a glamor of romance; she was altogether 
too keen to idealize them. They were not her kind, 
and while she granted their worth, they were more 
picturesque about their own affairs than when she came 
in close contact with them. Those were her first im- 
pressions. And so she looked at Roaring Bill Wag- 
staff, over the way, with a quite impersonal interest. 

He came into Briggs’ place for supper. Mrs. Briggs 
was her own waitress. Briggs himself sat beside Hazel. 
She heard him grunt, and saw a mild look of surprise 
flit over his countenance when Roaring Bill walked in 
and coolly took a seat. But not until Hazel glanced 
at the newcomer did she recognize him as the man who 
had fought in the street. He was looking straight at 
her when she did glance up, and the mingled astonish- 
ment and frank admiration in his clear gray eyes made 
Hazel drop hers quickly to her plate. Since Mr. An- 
drew Bush, she was beginning to hate men who looked 
at her that way. And she could not help seeing that 
many did so look. 

Roaring Bill ate his supper in silence. No one 
spoke to him, and he addressed no one except to ask 
that certain dishes be passed. Among the others con- 
versation was general. Hazel noticed that, and won- 
dered why — wondered if Roaring Bill was taboo. She 
had sensed enough of the Western point of view to 
know that the West held nothing against a man who 
was quick to blows — rather admired such a one, in 
fact. And her conclusions were not complimentary 
to Mr. Bill Wagstaff. If people avoided him in that 


CARIBOO MEADOWS 


63 


country, he must be a very hard citizen indeed. And 
Hazel no more than formulated this opinion than she 
was ashamed of it, having her own recent experience 
in mind. Whereupon she dismissed Bill Wagstaff from 
her thoughts altogether when she left the table. 

Exactly three days later Hazel came into the dining- 
room at noon, and there received her first lesson in the 
truth that this world is a very small place, after all. 
A nattily dressed gentleman seated to one side of her 
place at table rose with the most polite bows and ex- 
tended hand. Hazel recognized him at a glance as 
Mr. Howard Perkins, traveling salesman for Harring- 
ton & Bush. She had met him several times in the 
company offices. She was anything save joyful at the 
meeting, but after the first unwelcome surprise she re^ 
fleeted that it was scarcely strange that a link in her 
past life should turn up here, for she knew that in the 
very nature of things a firm manufacturing agricul- 
tural implements would have its men drumming up 
trade on the very edge of the frontier. 

Mr. Perkins was tolerably young, good looking, talka- 
tive, apparently glad to meet some one from home. He 
joined her on the porch , for a minute when the meal 
was over. And he succeeded in putting Hazel un- 
qualifiedly at her ease so far as he was concerned. If 
he had heard any Granville gossip, if he knew why she 
had left Granville, it evidently cut no figure with him. 
As a consequence, while she was simply polite and nega- 
tively friendly, deep in her heart Hazel felt a pleasant 
reaction from the disagreeable things for which Gran- 
ville stood; and, though she nursed both resentment 


64 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


and distrust against men in general, it did not seem 
to apply to Mr. Perkins. Anyway, he was here to-day, 
and on the morrow he would be gone. 

Being a healthy, normal young person. Hazel en- 
joyed his company without being fully aware of the 
fact. So much for natural gregariousness. Further- 
more, Mr. Perkins in his business had been pretty much 
everywhere on the North American continent, and he 
knew how to set forth his various experiences. Most 
women would have found him interesting, particularly 
in a community isolated as Cariboo Meadows, where 
tailored clothes and starched collars seemed unknown, 
and every man was his own barber — at infrequent in- 
tervals. 

So Hazel found it quite natural to be chatting with 
him on the Briggs’ porch when her school work ended 
at three-thirty in the afternoon. It transpired that 
Mr. Perkins, like herself, had an appreciation of the 
scenic beauties, and also the picturesque phases of life 
as it ran in the Cariboo country. They talked of many 
things, discussed life in a city as compared with ex- 
istence in the wild, and were agreed that both had de- 
sirable features — and drawbacks. Finally Mr. Per- 
kins proposed a walk up on a three-hundred-foot knoll 
that sloped from the back door, so to speak, of Cariboo 
Meadows. Hazel got her hat, and they set out. She 
had climbed that hill by herself, and she knew that it 
commanded a great sweep of the rolling land to the 
west. 

They reached the top in a few minutes, and found 
a seat on a dead tree trunk. Mr, Perkins was properly 


CARIBOO MEADOWS 


65 


impressed with the outlook. But before very long 
he seemed to suffer a relaxation of his interest in the 
view and a corresponding increase of attention to his 
companion. Hazel recognized the symptoms. At 
first it amused, then it irritated her. The playful 
familiarity of Mr. Perkins suddenly got on her nerves. 

“ I think I shall go down,” she said abruptly. 

“ Oh, I say, now, there’s no hurry,” Perkins re- 
sponded smilingly. 

But she was already rising from her seat, and Mr. 
Perkins, very likely gauging his action according to 
his experience in other such situations, did an utterly 
foolish thing. He caught her as she rose, and laugh- 
ingly tried to kiss her. Whereupon he discovered that 
he had caught a tartar, for Hazel slapped him with all 
the force she could muster — which was considerable, 
judging by the flaming red spot which the smack of her 
palm left on his smooth-shaven cheek. But he did not 
seem to mind that. Probably he had been slapped be- 
fore, and regarded it as part of the game. He at- 
tempted to draw her closer. 

“ Why, you’re a regular scrapper,” he smiled. 
“ Now, I’m sure you didn’t cuff Bush that way.” 

Hazel jerked loose from his grip in a perfect fury, 
using at the same time the weapons nature gave her 
according to her strength, whereby Mr. Perkins suf- 
fered sundry small bruises, which were as nothing to 
the bruises his conceit suffered. For, being free of 
him. Hazel stood her ground long enough to tell him 
that he was a cad, a coward, an ill-bred nincompoop, 
and other epithets grievous to masculine vanity. With 


66 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


that she fled incontinently down the hill, furious, shamed 
almost to tears, and wishing fervently that she had the 
muscle of a man to requite the insult as it deserved. 
To cap the climax, Mrs. Briggs, who had seen the two 
depart, observed her return alone, and, with a curious 
look, asked jokingly: 

“ Did you lose the young man in the timber? ” 

And Hazel, being keyed to a fearful pitch, unwisely 
snapped back: 

‘‘ I hope so.” 

Which caused Mrs. Briggs’ gaze to follow her won- 
deringly as she went hastily to her own room. 

Like other mean souls of similar pattern, it suited 
Mr. Perkins to seek revenge in the only way possible — 
by confidentially relating to divers individuals during 
that evening-»the Granville episode in the new teacher’s 
career. At least. Hazel guessed he must have told 
the tale of that ambiguously worded bequest and the 
subsequent gossip, for as early as the next day she 
caught certain of Jim Briggs’ boarders looking at 
her with an interest they had not heretofore dis- 
played — or, rather, it should be said, with a different 
sort of interest. They were discussing her. She could 
not know it positively, but she felt it. 

The feeling grew to certainty after Perkins’ depar- 
ture that day. There was a different atmosphere. 
Probably, she reflected, he had thrown in a few em- 
bellishments of his own for good measure. She felt 
a tigerish impulse to choke him. But she was proud, 
and she carried her head in the air, and, in effect, told 
Cariboo Meadows to believe as it pleased and act as 


CARIBOO MEADOWS 


67 


it pleased. They could do no more than cut her aud 
cause her to lose her school. She managed to keep up 
an air of cool indifference that gave no hint of the de- 
spairing protest that surged close to the surface. In- 
dividually and collectively, she reiterated to herself, 
she despised men. Her resentment had not yet ex- 
tended to the women of Cariboo Meadows. They were 
mostly too busy with their work to be much in the 
foreground. She did observe, or thought she ob- 
served, a certain coolness in Mrs. Briggs’ manner — a 
sort of suspended judgment. 

In the meantime, she labored diligently at her ap- 
pointed task of drilling knowledge into the heads of a 
dozen youngsters. From nine until three-thirty she 
had that to occupy her mind to the exclu^on of more 
troublesome things. When school work for the day 
ended, she went to her room, or sat on the porch, or 
took solitary rambles in the immediate vicinity, avoid- 
ing the male contingent as she would have avoided con- 
tagious disease. Never, never, she vowed, would she 
trust another man as far as she could throw him. 

The first Saturday after the Perkins incident. Hazel 
went for a tramp in the afternoon. She avoided the 
little hill close at hand. It left a bad taste in her 
mouth to look at the spot. This was foolish, and she 
realized that it was foolish, but she could not help the 
feeling — ^the insult was still too fresh in her mind. 
So she skirted its base and ranged farther afield. The 
few walks she had taken had lulled all sense of uneasi- 
ness in venturing into the infolding forest. She felt 
that those shadowy woods were less sinister than man, 


68 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


And since she had always kept her sense of direction 
and come straight to the Meadows whenever she went 
abroad, she had no fear or thought of losing her way. 

A mile or so distant a bare spot high on a wooded 
ridge struck her as a likely place to get an unobstructed 
view. To reach some height and sit in peace, staring 
out over far-spreading vistas, contented her. She 
could put away the unpleasantness of the immediate 
past, discount the possible sordidness of the future, 
and lose herself in dreams. 

To reach her objective point, she crossed a long 
stretch of rolling land, well timbered, dense in parts 
with thickets of berry bushes. Midway in this she 
came upon a little brook, purring a monotone as it 
crawled over pebbled reaches and bathed the tangled 
roots of trees along its brink. By this she sat a while. 
Then she idled along, coming after considerable diffi- 
culty to abruptly rising ground. Though in the midst 
of timber the sun failed to penetrate, she could always 
see it through the branches and so gauge her line of 
travel. On the hillside it was easier, for the forest 
thinned out. Eventually she gained a considerable 
height, and while she failed to reach the opening seen 
from the Meadows, she found another that served as 
well. The sun warmed it, and the sun rays were pleas- 
ant to bask in, for autumn drew close, and there was a 
coolness in the shade even at noon. She could not see# 
the town, but she could mark the low hills behind it. 
At any rate, she knew where it lay, and the way back. 

So she thought. But the short afternoon fled, and, 
warned by the low dip of the sun, she left her nook 


CARIBOO MEADOWS 


69 


on the hillside to make her way home. Though it was 
near sundown, she felt no particular concern. The 
long northern twilight gave her ample time to cover the 
distance. 

But once down on the rolling land, among the close- 
ranked trees, she began to experience a difficulty that 
had not hitherto troubled her. With the sun hanging 
low, she lost her absolute certainty of east and west, 
north and south. The forest seemed suddenly to grow 
confusingly dim and gloomier, almost menacing in 
its uncanny evening silence. The birds were hushed, 
and the wind. 

She blundered on, not admitting to herself the possi- 
bility of being unable to find Cariboo Meadows. As 
best she could, and to the best of her belief, she held in 
a straight line for the town. But she walked far 
enough to have overrun it, and was yet upon unfamiliar 
ground. The twilight deepened. The sky above 
showed turquoise blue between the tall tree-tops, but the 
woods themselves grew blurred, dusky at a little dis- 
tance ahead. Even to a seasoned woodsman, twilight 
in a timbered country that he does not know brings 
confusion ; uncertainty leads him far wide of his mark. 
Hazel, all unused to woods travel, hurried the more, 
uneasy with the growing conviction that she had gone 
astray. 

The shadows deepened until she tripped over roots 
and stones, and snagged her hair and clothing on 
branches she could not see in time to fend off. As a 
last resort, she turned straight for the light patch still 
showing in the northwest, hoping thus to cross the 


70 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


wagon road that ran from Soda Creek to the Meadows 

— it lay west, and she had gone northeast from town. 
And as she hurried, a fear began to tug at her that she 
had passed the Meadows unknowingly. If she could 
only cross a trail — trails always led somewhere, and 
she was going it blind. The immensity of the unpeo- 
pled areas she had been looking out over for a week 
appalled her. 

Presently it was dark, and darkness in the woods is 
the darkness of the pit itself. She found a fallen tree, 
and climbed on it to rest and think. Night in gloomy 
places brings an eerie feeling sometimes to the bravest 

— dormant sense impressions, running back to the cave 
age and beyond, become active, harry the mind with 
subtle, unreasoning qualms — and she was a girl, brave 
enough, but out of the only environment she knew how 
to grapple with. All the fearsome tales of forest 
beasts she had ever heard rose up to harass her. She 
had not lifted up her voice while it was light because 
she was not the timid soul that cries in the face of a 
threatened danger. Also because she would not then 
admit the possibility of getting lost. And now she was 
afraid to call. She huddled on the log, shuddering 
with the growing chill of the night air, partly with dread 
of the long, black night itself that walled her in. She 
had no matches to light a fire. 

After what seemed an age, she fancied she saw a 
gleam far distant in the timber. She watched the spot 
fixedly, and thought she saw the faint reflection of a 
light. That heartened her. She advanced toward it, 
hoping that it might be the gleam of a ranch window. 


CARIBOO MEADOWS 


71 


Her progress was slow. She blundered over the litter 
of a forest floor, tripping over unseen obstacles. But 
ten minutes established beyond peradventure the fact 
that it was indeed a light. Whether a house light or 
the reflection of a camp Are she was not woodwise 
enough to tell. But a fire must mean human beings 
of one sort or another, and thereby a means to reach 
home. 

She kept on. The wavering gleam came from behind 
a thicket — an open fire, she saw at length. Beyond 
the fire she heard a horse sneeze. Within a few yards 
of the thicket through which wavered the yellow gleam 
she halted, smitten with a sudden panic. This endured 
but a few seconds. All that she knew or had been told 
of frontier men reassured her. She had found them to 
a man courteous, awkwardly considerate. And she 
could not wander about all night. 

She moved cautiously, however, to the edge of the 
thicket, to a point where she could see the fire. A man 
sat humped over the glowing embers, whereon sizzled a 
piece of meat. His head was bent forward, as if he 
were listening. Suddenly he looked up, and she gasped 
— for the firelight showed the features of Roaring Bill 
WagstafF. 

She was afraid of him. Why she did not know nor 
stop to reason. But her fear of him was greater than 
her fear of the pitch-black night and the unknown dan- 
gers of the forest. She turned to retreat. In the 
same instant Roaring Bill reached to his rifle and 
stood up. 

“ Hold on there ! ” he said coolly. “ You’ve had a 


72 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


look at me — I want a look at you, old feller, whoever 
you are. Come on — show yourself.” 

He stepped sidewise out of the light as he spoke. 
Hazel started to run. The crack of a branch under 
foot^ betrayed her, and he closed in before she took three 
steps. He caught her rudely by the arm, and yanked 
her bodily into the firelight. 

“ Well — for the — love of — Mike ! ” 

Wagstaff drawled the exclamation out in a rising 
crescendo of astonishment. Then he laid his gun down 
across a roll of bedding, and stood looking at her in 
speechless wonder. 


CHAPTER VII 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 

“ For the love of Mike ! ” Roaring Bill said again. 
“ What are you doing wandering around in the woods 
at night? Good Lord! Your teeth are chattering. 
Sit down here and get warm. It is sort of chilly.” 

Even in her fear, bom of the night, the circum- 
stances, and partly of the man. Hazel noticed that his 
speech was of a different order from that to which she 
had been listening the past ten days. His enunciation 
was perfect. He dropped no word endings, nor slurred 
his syllables. And cast in so odd a mold is the mind 
of civilized woman that the small matter of a little re- 
finement of speech put Hazel Weir more at her ease 
than a volume of explanation or protest on his part 
would have done. She had pictured him a ruffian in 
thought, speech, and deed. His language cleared him 
on one count, and she observed that almost his first 
thought was for her comfort, albeit he made no sort of 
apology for handling her so roughly in the gloom be- 
yond the fire. 

“ I got lost,” she explained, growing suddenly calm. 
“ I was out walking, and lost my way.” 

“ Easy thing to do when you don’t know timber,” 
Bill remarked. “ And in consequence you haven’t had 
any supper ; you’ve been scared almost to death — and 


74 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


probably all of Cariboo Meadows is out looking for 
you. Well, you’ve had an adventure. That’s worth 
something. Better eat a bite, and you’ll feel better.” 

He turned over the piece of meat on the coals while 
he spoke. Hazel saw that it lay on two green sticks, 
like a steak on a gridiron. It was quite simple, but 
she would never have thought of that. The meat ex- 
haled savory odors. Also, the warmth of the fire seemed 
good. But — 

“ I’d rather be home,” she confessed. 

“ Sure ! I guess you would — naturally. I’ll see 
that you get there, though it won’t be easy. It’s no 
snap to travel these woods in the dark. You couldn’t 
have been so far from the Meadows. How did it come 
you didn’t yell once in a while ? ” 

‘‘ I didn’t think it was necessary,” Hazel admitted, 
“ until it began to get dark. And then I didn’t 
like to.” 

“ You got afraid,” Roaring Bill supplied. “ Well, 
it does sound creepy to holler in the timber after night. 
I know how that goes. I’ve made noises after night 
that scared myself.” 

He dug some utensils out of his pack layout — two 
plates, knife, fork, and spoons, and laid them by the 
fire. Opposite the meat a pot of water bubbled. Roar- 
ing Bill produced a small tin bucket, black with the 
smoke of many an open fire, and a package, and made 
coffee. Then he spread a canvas sheet, and laid on that 
bread, butter, salt, a jar of preserved fruit. 

“ How far is it to Cariboo Meadows ” Hazel asked. 

Bill looked up from his supper preparations. 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 


75 


“ You’ve got me,” he returned carelessly. “ Prob- 
ably four or five miles. I’m not positive ; I’ve been 
running in circles myself this afternoon.^ 

“ Good heavens ! ” Hazel exclaimed. “ But you 
know the way.?^ ” 

“ Like a book — in the daytime,” he replied. “ But 
night in the timber is another story, as you’ve just 
been finding out for yourself.” 

“ I thought men accustomed to the wilderness could 
always find their way about, day or night,” Hazel ob- 
served tartly. 

“ They can — in stories,” JBiH answered dryly. 

He resumed his arranging of the food while she di- 
gested this. Presently he sat down beside the fire, and 
while he turned the meat with a forked stick, came back 
to the subject again. 

“ You see, I’m away off any trail here,” he said, 
“ and it’s all woods, with only a little patch of open 
here and there. It’s pure accident I happen to be here 
at all; accident which comes of unadulterated cussed- 
ness on the part of one of my horses. I left the Mead- 
ows at noon, and Nigger — that’s this confounded 
cayuse of mine — he had to get scared and take to the 
brush. He got plumb away from me, and I had to 
track him. I didn’t come up with him till dusk, and 
then the first good place I struck, which was here, I 
made camp. I was all for catching that horse, so I 
didn’t pay much attention to where I was going. 
Didn’t need to, because I know the country well enough 
to get anywhere in daylight, and I’m fixed to camp 
wherever night overtakes me. So I’m not dead sure of 


76 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


my ground. But you don’t need to worry on that ac- 
count. I’ll get you home all right. Only it’ll be mean 
traveling — and slow — unless we happen to bump into 
some of those fellows out looking for you. They’d 
surely start out when you didn’t come home at dusk; 
they know it isn’t any joke for a girl to get lost in 
these woods. I’ve known men to get badly turned 
round right in this same country. Well, sit up and eat 
a bite.” 

She had to be satisfied with his assurance that he 
would see her to Cariboo Meadows. And, accepting 
the situation with what philosophy she could command. 
Hazel proceeded to fall to — and soon discovered her- 
self relishing the food more than any meal she had eaten 
for a long time. Hunger is the king of appetizers, and 
food cooked in the open has a flavor of its own which 
no aproned chef can duplicate. Roaring Bill put half 
the piece of meat on her plate, sliced bread for her, 
and set the butter handy. Also, he poured her a cup 
of coflPee. He had a small sack of sugar, and his pack 
boxes yielded condensed milk. 

“ Maybe you’d rather have tea,” he said. “ I didn’t 
think to ask you. Most Canadians don’t drink any- 
thing else.” 

“ No, thanks. I like coffee,” Hazel replied. 

“ You’re not a true-blue Canuck, then,” Bill ob- 
served. 

“ Indeed, I am,” she declared. “ Aren’t you a Cana- 
dian?” 

“ Well, I don’t know that the mere accident of birth 
in some particular locality makes any diff’erence,” he 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 77 


answered. “ But I’m a lot shy of being a Canadian, 
though I’ve been in this country a long time. I was 
born in Chicago, the smokiest, windiest old burg in the 
United States.” 

‘‘ It’s a big place, isn’t it.?^ ” Hazel kept the con- 
versation going. ‘‘ I don’t know any of the American 
cities, but I have a girl friend working in a Chicago 
office.” 

“ Yes, it’s big — big and noisy and dirty, and full of 
wrecks — human derelicts in an industrial Sargasso 
Sea — like all big cities the world over. I don’t 
like ’em.” 

Wagstaff spoke casually, as much to himself as to 
her, and he did not pursue the subject, but began his 
meal. 

“What sort of meat is this.?” Hazel asked after a 
few minutes of silence. It was fine-grained and of a 
rich flavor strange to her mouth. She liked it, but it 
was neither beef, pork, nor mutton, nor any meat she 
knew. 

“ Venison. Didn’t you ever eat any before.? ” he 
smiled. 

“Never tasted it,” she answered. “Isn’t it nice? 
No, I’ve read of hunters cooking venison over an open 
fire, but this is my first taste. Indeed, I’ve never seen 
a real camp fire before.” 

“ Lord — what a lot you’ve missed ! ” There was 
real pity in his tone. “ I killed that deer to-day. In 
fact, the little circus I had with Mr. Buck was what 
started Nigger off into the brush. Have some more 
coffee. ” 


78 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


He refilled her tin cup, and devoted himself to his 
food. Before long they had satisfied their hunger. 
Bill laid a few dry sticks on the fire. The flames laid 
hold of them and shot up in bright, wavering tongues. 
It seemed to Hazel that she had stepped utterly out of 
her world. Cariboo Meadows, the schoolhouse, and 
her classes seemed remote. She found herself wishing 
she were a man, so that she could fare into the wilds 
with horses and a gun in this capable man fashion, 
where routine went by the board and the unexpected 
hovered always close at hand. She looked up suddenly, 
to find him regarding her with a whimsical smile. 

“ In a few minutes,” said he, “ I’ll pack up and try 
to deliver you as per contract. Meantime, I’m going to 
smoke.” 

He did not ask her permission, but filled his pipe and 
lighted it with a coal. And for the succeeding fifteen 
minutes Roaring Bill WagstafF sat staring into the 
dancing blaze. Once or twice he glanced at her, and 
when he did the same whimsical smile would flit across 
his face. Hazel watched him uneasily after a time. 
He seemed to have forgotten her. His pipe died, and 
he sat holding it in his hand. She was uneasy, but not 
afraid. There was nothing about him or his actions 
to make her fear. On the contrary. Roaring Bill at 
close quarters inspired confidence. Why she could not 
and did not attempt to determine, psychological analy- 
sis being rather out of her line. 

Physically, however. Roaring Bill measured up to a 
high standard. He was young, probably twenty-seven 
or thereabouts. There was power — plenty of it — in 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 79 


the wide shoulders and deep chest of him, with arms in 
proportion. His hands, while smooth on the backs and 
well cared for, showed when he exposed the palms the 
callouses of ax handling. And his face was likable, 
she decided, full of character, intensely masculine. In 
her heart every woman despises any hint of the effem- 
inate in man. Even though she may decry what she is 
pleased to term the brute in man, whenever he discards 
the dominant, overmastering characteristics of the male 
she will have none of him. Miss Hazel Weir was no 
exception to her sex. 

Consciously or otherwise she took stock of Bill Wag- 
staff. She knew him to be in bad odor with Cariboo 
Meadows for some unknown reason. She had seen him 
fight in the street, knock a man unconscious with his 
fists. According to her conceptions of behavior that 
was brutal and vulgar. Drinking came under the same 
head, and she had Jim Briggs’ word that Bill Wagstaff 
not only got drunk, but was a ‘‘ holy terror ” when in 
that condition. Yet she could not quite associate the 
twin traits of brutality and vulgarity with the man 
sitting close by with that thoughtful look on his face. 
His speech stamped him as a man of education ; every 
line of him showed breeding in all that the word implies. 

Nevertheless, he was ‘‘ tough.” And she had gath- 
ered enough of the West’s wide liberality of view in re- 
gard to personal conduct to know that Roaring Bill 
Wagstaff must be a hard citizen indeed to be practi- 
cally ostracized in a place like Cariboo Meadows. 
She wondered what Cariboo Meadows would say if it 
could see her sitting by Bill Wagstaff’s fire at nine in 


8o 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


the evening in the heart of the woods. What would 
they say when he piloted her home.? 

In the midst of her reflections Roaring Bill got up. 

“ Well, we’ll make a move,” he said, and disappeared 
abruptly into the dark. 

She heard him moving around at some distance. 
Presently he was back, leading three horses. 6ne he 
saddled. The other two he rigged with his pack outfit, 
storing his varied belongings in two pair of kyaks, and 
loading kyaks and bedding on the horses with a deft 
speed that bespoke long practice. He was too busy to 
talk, and Hazel sat beside the fire, watching in silence. 
When he had tucked up the last rope end, he turned to 
her. 

“ There,” he said ; “ we’re ready to hit the trail. 
Can you ride? ” 

‘‘ I don’t know,” Hazel answered dubiously. “ I 
never have ridden a horse.” 

“My, my!” he smiled. “Your education has been 
sadly neglected — and you a schoolma’am, too 1 ” 

“ My walking education hasn’t been neglected,” Hazel 
retorted. “ I don’t need to ride, thank you.” 

“ Yes, and stub your toe and fall down every ten 
feet,” Bill observed. “ No, Miss Weir, your first lesson 
in horsemanship is now due — if you aren’t afraid of 
horses.” 

“ I’m not afraid of horses at all,” Hazel declared. 
“ But I don’t think it’s a very good place to take rid- 
ing lessons. I can just as well walk, for I’m not in the 
least afraid.” And then she added as an afterthought : 
“ How do you happen to know my name ? ” 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 8i 


“ In the same way that you know mine,” Bill replied, 
“ even if you haven’t mentioned it yet. Lord bless you, 
do you suppose Cariboo Meadows could import a lady 
school-teacher from the civilized East without every- 
body in fifty miles knowing who she was, and where she 
came from, and what she looked like? You furnished 
them a subject for conversation and speculation — the 
same as I do when I drop in there and whoop it up for 
a while. I guess you don’t realize what old granny 
gossips we wild Westerners are. Especially where girls 
are concerned.” 

Hazel stiffened a trifle. She did not like the idea 
of Cariboo Meadows discussing her with such freedom. 
She was becoming sensitive on that subject — since the 
coming and going of Mr. Howard Perkins, for she felt 
that they were considering her from an angle that she 
did not relish. She wondered also if Roaring Bill Wag- 
staff had heard that gossip. And if he had — At any 
rate, she could not accuse him of being impertinent 
or curious in so far as she was concerned. After the 
first look and exclamation of amazement he had taken 
her as a matter of course. If anything, his personal 
attitude was tinctured with indifference. 

“ Well,” said he, “ we won’t argue the point.” 

He disappeared into the dark again. This time, he 
came back with the crown of his hat full of water, 
which he sprinkled over the dwindling fire. As the red 
glow of the embers faded in a sputter of steam and 
ashes. Hazel realized more profoundly the blackness of 
a cloudy night in the woods. Until her eyes accus- 
tomed themselves to the transition from firelight to the 


82 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


gloom, she could see nothing but vague shapes that 
she knew to be the horses, and another dim, moving 
object that was Bill Wagstaff. Beyond that the inky 
canopy above and the forest surrounding seemed a 
solid wall. 

“ It’s going to be nasty traveling. Miss Weir,” Roar- 
ing Bill spoke at her elbow. “ I’ll walk and lead the 
packs. You ride Silk. He’s gentle. All you have to 
do is sit still, and he’ll stay right behind the packs. 
I’ll help you mount.” 

If Hazel had still been inclined to insist on walking, 
she had no chance to debate the question. Bill took her 
by the arm and led her up beside the horse. It was a 
unique experience for her, this being compelled to do 
things. No man had ever issued ultimatums to her. 
Even Jack Barrow, with all an accepted lover’s privi- 
leges, had never calmly told her that she must do thus 
and so, and acted on the supposition that his word was 
final. But here was Roaring Bill Wagstaff telling her 
how to put her foot in the stirrup, putting her for the 
first time in her life astride a horse, warning her to 
duck low branches. In his mind there seemed to be no 
question as whether or not she would ride. He had 
settled that. 

Unused to mounting, she blundered at the first at- 
tempt, and flushed in the dark at Bill’s amused chuckle. 
The next instant he caught her under the arms, and, 
with the leverage of her one foot in the stirrup, set her 
gently in the seat of the saddle. 

“ You’re such a little person,” he said, “ these stir- 
rups are a mile too long. Put your feet in the leather 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 8;^ 

above — so. Now play follow your leader. Give Silk 
his head.” 

He moved away. The blurred shapes of the pack 
horses forged ahead, rustling in the dry grass, dry 
twigs snapping under foot. Obedient to Bill’s com- 
mand, she let the reins dangle, and Silk followed close 
behind his mates. Hazel lurched unsteadily at first, 
but presently she caught the swinging motion and could 
maintain her balance without holding stiffly to the sad- 
dle horn. 

They crossed the small meadow and plunged into 
thick woods again. For the greater part of the way 
Hazel could see nothing; she could tell that Wagstaff 
and the pack horses moved before her by the sounds of 
their progress, and that was all. Now and then low- 
hanging limbs reached suddenly out of the dark, and 
touched her with unseen fingers, or swept rudely across 
her face and hair. 

The night seemed endless as the wilderness itself. 
Unused to riding, she became sore, and then the sore 
muscles stiffened. The chill of the night air intensified. 
She grew cold, her fingers numb. She did not know 
where she was going, and she was assailed with doubts 
of Roaring Bill’s ability to find Cariboo Meadows. 

For what seemed to her an interminable length of 
time they bore slowly on through timber, crossed open- 
ings where the murk of the night thinned a little, en- 
abling her to see the dim form of Wagstaff plodding in 
the lead. Again they dipped down steep slopes and 
ascended others as steep, where Silk was forced to 
scramble, and Hazel kept a precarious seat. She be- 


84 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


gan to feel, with an odd heart sinking, that sufficient 
time had elapsed for them to reach the Meadows, even 
by a roundabout way. Then, as they crossed a tiny, 
gurgling stream, and came upon a level place beyond. 
Silk bumped into the other horses and stopped. Hazel 
hesitated a second. There was no sound of movement. 

“ Mr. Wagstaff! ” she called. 

“ Yours truly,” his voice hailed back, away to one 
side. “ I’ll be there in a minute.” 

In less time he appeared beside her. 

“ Will you fall off, or be lifted off.? ” he said cheer- 

my. 

“ Where are we ? ” she demanded. 

“ Ask me something easy,” he returned. ‘‘ I’ve been 
going it blind for an hour, trying to hit the Soda Creek 
Trail, or any old trail that would show me where I am. 
It’s no use. Too dark. A man couldn’t find his way 
over country that he knew to-night if he had a lantern 
and a compass.” 

“What on earth am I going to do?” Hazel cried 
desperately. 

“ Camp here till daylight,” Roaring Bill answered 
evenly. “ The only thing you can do. Good Lord ! ” 
His hand accidentally rested on hers. “ You’re like 
ice. I didn’t think about you getting cold riding. I’m 
a mighty thoughtless escort, I’m afraid. Get down 
and put on a coat, and I’ll have a fire in a minute.” 

“ I suppose if I must, I must ; but I can get off with- 
out any help, thank you,” Hazel answered ungraciously. 

Roaring Bill made no reply, but stood back, and 
when her feet touched solid earth he threw over her 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 85 


shoulders the coat he had worn himself. Then he 
turned away, and Hazel saw him stooping here and 
there, and heard the crack of dry sticks broken over 
his knee. In no time he was back to the horses with 
an armful of dry stuff, and had a small blaze licking up 
through dry grass and twigs. As it grew he piled on 
larger sticks till the bright flame waved two feet high, 
lighting up the near-by woods and ^bedding a bright 
glow on the three horses standing patiently at hand. 
He paid no attention to Hazel until slre^came timidly 
up to the fire. Then he looked up at hdl^^with his 
whimsical smile. 

“ That’s right,” he said ; “ come on and get warm. 
No use worrying — or getting cross. I suppose from 
your civilized, conventional point of view it’s a terrible 
thing to be out in the woods all night alone with a 
strange man. But I’m not a bear — I won’t eat you.” 

“ I’m sorry if I seemed rude,” Hazel said penitently ; 
Roaring Bill’s statement was reassuring in its frank- 
ness. “ I can’t help thinking of the disagreeable side of 
it. People talk so. I suppose I’ll be a nine days’ 
wonder in Cariboo Meadows.” 

Bill laughed softly. 

“ Let them take it out in wondering,” he advised. 
“ Cariboo Meadows is a very small and insi^ificant 
portion of the world, anyway.” 

He went to one of the packs, and came back with a 
canvas cover, which he spread on the ground. 

“ Sit on that,” he said. “ The earth’s always damp 
in the woods.” 

Then he stripped the horses of their burdens and tied 


86 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


them out of sight among the trees. That task finished, 
he took his ax and rustled a pile of wood, dragging dead 
poles up to the fire and chopping them into short 
lengths. When finally he laid aside his ax, he busied 
himself with gathering grass and leaves and pine nee- 
dles until he had several armfuls collected and spread 
in an even pile to serve as a mattress. Upon this he 
laid his bedding, two thick quilts, two or three pairs of 
woolen blankets, a pillow, the whole inclosed with a long 
canvas sheet, the bed tarpaulin of the cattle ranges. 

“ There,” he said ; “ you can turn in whenever you 
feel like it.” 

For 'himself he took the saddle blankets and laid 
them close by the fire within reaching distance of the 
woodpile, taking for cover a pack canvas. He stretched 
himself full length, filled his pipe, lit it, and fell to star- 
ing into the fire while he smoked. 

Half an hour later he raised his head and looked 
across the fire at Hazel. 

“ Why don’t you go to bed ? ” he asked. 

“ I’m not sleepy,” she declared, which was a palpable 
falsehood, for her eyelids were even then drooping. 

“ Maybe not, but you need rest,” Bill said quietly. 
“ Quit thinking things. It’ll be all the same a hundred 
years from now. Go on to bed. You’ll be more com- 
fortable.” 

Thus peremptorily commanded. Hazel found herself 
granting instant obedience. The bed, as Bill had re- 
marked, was far more comfortable than sitting by the 
fire. She got into the blankets just as she stood, even 
to her shoes, and drew the canvas sheet up so that it 


A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAN 87 


hid her face — but did not prevent her from seeing. 

In spite of herself, she slept fitfully. Now and then 
she would wake with a start to a half-frightened real- 
ization of her surroundings and plight, and whenever 
she did wake and look past the fire it was to see Roar- 
ing Bill Wagstaff stretched out in the red glow, his 
brown head pillowed an one folded arm. Once she saw 
him reach to the wood without moving his body and lay 
a stick on the fire. 

Then all at once she wakened out of sound slumber 
with a violent start. Roaring Bill was shaking the tar- 
paulin over her and laughing. 

“ Arise, Miss Sleeping Beauty ! ” he said boyishly. 
“ Breakfast’s ready.” 

He went back to the fire. Hazel sat up, patting her 
tousled hair into some semblance of order. Off in the 
east a reddish streak spread skyward into somber gray. 
In the west, black night gave ground slowly. 

“ Well, it’s another day,” she whispered, as she had 
whispered to herself once before. ‘‘ I wonder if there 
will ever be any more like it.? ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


IN DEEP WATER 

The dawn thrust aside night’s somber curtains while 
they ate, revealing a sky overcast with slaty clouds. 
What with her wanderings of the night before and the 
journey through the dark with Roaring Bill, she had 
absolutely no idea of either direction or locality. The 
infolding timber shut off the outlook. Forest-clad 
heights upreared here and there, but no landmark that 
she could place and use for a guide. She could not 
guess whether Cariboo Meadows was a mile distant, or 
ten, nor in what direction it might lie. If she had not 
done so before, she now understood how much she had to 
depend on Roaring Bill WagstafF. 

“ Do you suppose I can get home in time to open 
school? ” she inquired anxiously. 

Roaring Bill smiled. “ I don’t know,” he answered. 
“ It all depends.” 

Upon what it depended he did not specify, but busied 
himself packing up. In half an hour or less they were 
ready to start. Bill spent a few minutes longer short- 
ening the stirrups, then signified that she should mount. 
He seemed more thoughtful, less inclined to speech. 

“You know where you are now, don’t you? ” she 
asked. 


IN DEEP WATER 89 

“ Not exactly,” he responded. ‘‘ But I will before 
long — I hope.” 

The ambiguity of his answer did not escape her. 
She puzzled over it while Silk ambled sedately behind 
the other horses. She hoped that Bill Wagstaff knew 
where he was going. If he did not — but she refused 
to entertain the alternative. And she began to watch 
eagerly for some sign of familiar ground. 

For two hours Roaring Bill tramped through aisles 
bordered with pine and spruce and fir, through thickets 
of berry bush, and across limited areas of grassy 
meadow. Not once did they cross a road or a trail. 
With the clouds hiding the sun, she could not tell north 
from south after they left camp. Eventually Bill 
halted at a small stream to get a drink. Hazel looked 
at her watch. It was half past eight. 

“ Aren’t we ever going to get there ? ” she called im- 
patiently. 

“ Pretty soon,” he called back, and struck out 
briskly .again. 

Another hour passed. Ahead of her, leading one 
pack horse and letting the other follow untrammeled. 
Roaring Bill kept doggedly on, halting for nothing, 
never looking back. If he did not know where he was 
going, he showed no hesitation. And Hazel had no 
choice but to follow. 

They crossed a ravine and slanted up a steep hill- 
side. Presently Hazel could look away over an area 
of woodland undulating like a heavy ground swell at 
sea. Here and there ridges stood forth boldly above 
the general roll, and distantly she could descry a white- 


go 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


capped mountain range. \ They turned the end of a 
thick patch of pine scrub, and Bill pulled up in a small 
opening. From a case swinging at his belt he took out 
a pair of field glasses, and leisurely surveyed the coun- 
try. 

“ Well.^* ” Hazel interrogated. 

She herself had cast an anxious glance over the Vide 
sweep below and beyond, seeing nothing but timber and 
hills, with the silver thread of a creek winding serpent- 
wise through the green. But of habitation or trail 
there was never a sign. And it was after ten o’clock. 
They were over four hours from their camp ground. 

“ Nothing in sight, is there.? ” Bill said thoughtfully. 
“ If the sun was out, now. Funny I can’t spot that 
Soda Creek Trail.” 

‘‘ Don’t you know this country at all ? ” she asked 
gloomily. 

“ I thought I did,” he replied. “ But I can’t seem 
to get my bearings to work out correctly. I’m awfully 
sorry to keep you in such a pickle. But it can’t be 
helped.” 

Thus he disarmed her for the time being. She could 
not find fault with a man who was doing his best to help 
her. If Roaring Bill were unable to bear straight for 
the Meadows, it was unfortunate for her, but no fault 
of his. At the same time, it troubled her more than 
she would admit. 

“ Well, we won’t get anywhere standing on this hill,” 
he remarked at length. 

He took up the lead rope and moved on. They 
dropped over the ridge crest and once more into the 


IN DEEP WATER 


91 


troods. Roaring Bill made his next halt beside a 
spring, and fell to unlashing the packs. 

“ What are you going to do? ” Hazel asked. ^ 

“ Cook a bite, and let the horses graze,” he told her. 
“ Do you realize that we’ve been going since daylight? 
It’s near noon. Horses have to eat and rest once in a 
while, just the same as human beings.” 

The logic of this Hazel could not well deny, since she 
herself was tired and ravenously hungry. By her 
watch it was just noon. 

Bill hobbled out his horses on the grass below the 
spring, made a fire, and set to work cooking. For the 
first time the idea of haste seemed to have taken hold 
of him. He worked silently at the meal getting, fried 
steaks of venison, and boiled a pot of coffee. They ate. 
He filled his pipe, and smoked while he repacked. Al- 
together, he did not consume more than forty minutes 
at the noon halt. Hazel, now woefully saddle sore, 
would fain have rested longer, and, in default of rest- 
ing, tried to walk and lead Silk. Roaring Bill offered 
no objection to that. But he hit a faster gait. She 
could not keep up, and he did not slacken pace when 
she began to fall behind. So she mounted awkwardly, 
and Silk jolted and shook her with his trotting until he 
caught up with his mates. Bill grinned over his shoul- 
der. 

“ You’re learning fast,” he called back. “ You’ll be 
able to run a pack train by and by.” 

The afternoon wore on without bringing them any 
nearer Cariboo Meadows so far as Hazel could see. 
Traveling over a country swathed in timber and diversi- 


92 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


fled in contour, she could not tell whether Roaring Bill 
swung in a circle or bore straight for some given point. 
She speculated futdely on the outcome of the strange 
plight she was in. It was a far cry from pounding a 
typewriter in a city office to jogging through the wil- 
derness, lost beyond peradventure, her only company 
a stranger of unsavory reputation. Yet she was not 
frightened, for all the element of unreality. Under 
other circumstances she could have relished the adven- 
ture, taken pleasure in faring gypsy fashion over the 
wide reaches where man had left no mark. As it was — 

She called a halt at four o’clock. 

‘‘Mr. Wagstaff!” 

Bill stopped his horses and came back to her. 

“Aren’t we ever going to get anywhere.? ” she asked 
soberly. 

“ Sure ! But we’ve got to keep going. Got to make 
the best of a bad job,” he returned. “ Getting pretty 
tired.? ” 

“ I am,” she admitted. “ I’m afraid I can’t ride 
much longer. I could walk if you wouldn’t go so fast. 
Aren’t there any ranches in this country at all.? ” 

He shook his head. “ They’re few and far be- 
tween,” he said. “ Don’t worry, though. It isn’t a 
life-and-death matter. If we were out here without 
grub or horses it might be tough. You’re in no danger 
from exposure or hunger.” 

“ You don’t seem to realize the position it puts me 
in,” Hazel answered. A wave of despondency swept 
over her, and her eyes grew suddenly bright with the 
tears she strove to keep back. “ If we wander around 


IN DEEP WATER 


93 


in the woods much longer, I’ll simply be a sensation 
when I do get back to Cariboo Meadows. I won’t have 
a shred of reputation left. It will probably result in 
my losing the school. You’re a man, and it’s different 
with you. You can’t know what a girl has to contend 
with where no one knows her. I’m a stranger in this 
country, and what little they do know of me — ” 

She stopped short, on the point of saying that what 
Cariboo Meadows knew of her through the medium of 
Mr. Howard Perkins was not at all to her credit. 

Roaring Bill looked up at her impassively. ‘‘ I 
know,” he said, as if he had read her thought. “ Your 
friend Perkins talked a lot. But what’s the difference? 
Cariboo Meadows is only a fleabite. If you’re right, 
and you know you’re right, you can look the world in 
the eye and tell it collectively to go to the devil. Be- 
sides, you’ve got a perverted idea. People aren’t so 
ready to give you the bad eye on somebody else’s 
say-so. It would take a lot more than a flash drum- 
mer’s word to convince me that you’re a naughty little 
girl. Pshaw — forget it ! ” 

Hazel colored hotly at his mention of Perkins, but 
for the latter part of his speech she could have hugged 
him. Bill Wagstaff went a long way, in those brief 
sentences, toward demolishing her conviction that no 
man ever overlooked an opportunity of taking advan- 
tage of a woman. But Bill said nothing further. He 
stood a moment longer by her horse, resting one hand 
on Silk’s mane, and scraping absently in the soft earth 
with the toe of his boot. 

“ Well, let’s get somewhere,” he said abruptly. “ If 


94 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

you’re too saddle sore to ride', walk a while. I’ll go 
slower.” 

She walked, and the exercise relieved the cramping 
ache in her limhs. Roaring Bill’s slower pace was fast 
enough at that. She followed till her strength began 
to fail. And when in spite of her determination she 
lagged behind, he stopped at the first water. 

“ We’ll camp here,” he said. You’re about all in, 
and we can’t get anywhere to-night, I see plainly.” 

Hazel accepted this dictum as best she could. She 
sat down on a mossy rock while he stripped the horses 
of their gear and staked them out. Then Bill started 
a fire and fixed the roll of bedding by it for her to sit on. 
Dusk crept over the forest while he cooked supper, 
making a bannock in the frying pan to take the place 
of bread ; and when they had finished eating and washed 
the few dishes, night shut down black as the pit. 

They talked little. Hazel was in the grip of utter 
forlornness, moody, wishful to cry. Roaring Bill 
humped on his side of the fire, staring thoughtfully into 
the blaze. After a long period of abstraction he 
glanced at his watch, then arose and silently arranged 
her bed. After that he spread his saddle blankets and 
lay down. 

Hazel crept into the covers and quietly sobbed her- 
self to sleep. The huge and silent land appalled her. 
She had been chucked neck and crop into the primitive, 
and she had not yet been able to react to her environ- 
ment. She was neither faint-hearted nor hysterical. 
The grind of fending for herself in a city had taught 
her the necessity of self-control. But she was worn 


IN DEEP WATER 


95 


out, unstrung, and there is a limit to a woman’s endur- 
ance. 

As on the previous night, she wakened often and 
glanced over to the fire. Roaring Bill kept his accus- 
tomed position, flat in the glow. She had no fear of 
him now. But he was something of an enigma. She 
had few illusions about men in general. She had en- 
countered a good many of them in one way and another 
since reaching the age when she coiled her hair on top 
of her head. And she could not recall one — not even 
Jack Barrow — with whom she would have felt at ease 
in a similar situation. She knew that there was a some- 
thing about her that drew men. If the presence of her 
had any such effect on Bill Wagstaff, he painstakingly 
concealed it. 

And she was duly grateful for that. She had not 
believed it a characteristic of his type — the virile, in- 
tensely masculine type of man. But she had not once 
found him looking at her with the same expression in 
his eyes that she had seen once over Jim Briggs’ din- 
ing table. 

Night passed, and dawn ushered in a clearing sky. 
Ragged wisps of clouds chased each other across the 
blue when they set out again. Hazel walked the stiff- 
ness out of her muscles before she mounted. When she 
did get on Silk, Roaring Bill increased his pace. He 
was long-legged and light of foot, apparently tireless. 
She asked no questions. What was the use ? He would 
eventually come out somewhere. She was resigned to 
wait. 

After a time she began to puzzle, and the old uneasi- 


96 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


ness came back. The last trailing banner of cloud van- 
ished, and the sun rode clear in an opal sky, smiling 
benignly down on the forested land. She was thus en- 
abled to locate the cardinal points of the compass. 
Wherefore she took to gauging their course by the 
shadows. And the result was what set her thinking. 
Over level and ridge and swampy hollow. Roaring Bill 
drove straight north in an undeviating line. She recol- 
lected that the point from which she had lost her way 
had lain northeast of Cariboo Meadows. Even if they 
had swung in a circle, they could scarcely be pointing 
for the town in that direction. For another hour Bill 
held to the northern line as a needle holds to the pole. 

A swift rush of misgiving seized her. 

‘‘Mr. WagstafF!” she called sharply. 

Roaring Bill stopped, and she rode Silk up past the 
pack horses. 

“ Where are you taking me ? ” she demanded. 

“ Why, I’m taking you home — or trying to,” he an- 
swered mildly. 

“ But you’re going north,^^ she declared. “ You’ve 
been going north all morning. I was north of Cariboo 
Meadows when I got lost. How can we get back to 
Cariboo Meadows by going still farther north.?’ ” 

“ You’re more of a woodsman than I Imagined,” Bill 
remarked gently. He smiled up at her, and drew out 
his pipe and tobacco pouch. 

She looked at him for a minute. “ Do you know 
where we are now.?’ ” she asked quietly. ^ 

He met her keen gaze calmly. “ I do,” he made la- 
conic answer. ? 


IN DEEP WATER 


97 

“ Which way is Cariboo Meadows, then, and how far 
is it? ” she demanded. 

“ General direction south,” he replied slowly. 
“ Fifty miles more or less. Rather more than less.” 

“ And you’ve been leading me straight north ! ” she 
cried. “ Oh, what am I going to do ? ” 

“ Keep right on going,” WagstafF answered. 

“ I won’t — I won’t ! ” she flashed. “ I’ll find my 
own way back. What devilish impulse prompted you 
to do such a thing? ” 

“ You’ll have a beautiful time of it,” he said dryly, 
completely ignoring her last question. “ Take you 
three days to walk there — if you knew every foot of 
the way. And you don’t know the way. Traveling in 
timber is confusing, as you’ve discovered. You’ll never 
see Cariboo Meadows, or any other place, if you tackle 
it single-handed, without grub or matches or bedding. 
It’s fall, remember. A snowstorm is due any time. 
This is a whopping big country. A good many men 
have got lost in it — and other men have found their 
bones.” 

He let this sink in while she sat there on his horse 
choking back a wild desire to curse him by bell, book, 
and candle for what he had done, and holding in check 
the fear of what he might yet do. She knew him to be 
a different type of man from any she had ever encoun- 
tered. She could not escape the conclusion that Roar- 
ing Bill WagstafF was something of a law unto himself, 
capable of hewing to the line of his own desires at any 
cost. She realized her utter helplessness, and the real- 
ization left her without words. He had drawn a vivid 


98 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


picture, and the instinct of self-preservation asserted it- 
self. 


“ You misled me.” She found her voice at last. 
« Why.?” 

“Did I mislead you.?” he parried. “Weren’t you 
already lost when you came to my camp.? And have I 
mistreated you in any manner.? Have I refused you 
food, shelter, or help.? ” 

“ My home is in Cariboo Meadows,” she persisted. 
“ I asked you to take me there. You led me away from 
there deliberately, I believe now.” 

“ My trail doesn’t happen to lead to Cariboo Mead- 
ows, that’s all,” Roaring Bill coolly told her. “ If you 
must go back there, I shan’t restrain you in any way 
whatever. But I’m for home myself. And that,” he 
came close, and smiled frankly up at her, “ is a better 
place than Cariboo Meadows. I’ve got a little house 
back there in the woods. There’s a big fireplace where 
the wind plays tag with the snowflakes in winter time. 
There’s grub there, and meat in the forest, and fish in 
the streams. It’s home for me. Why should I go back 
to Cariboo Meadows .? Or you .? ” 

“ Why should I go with you.? ” she demanded scorn- 
fully. 

“ Because I want you to,” he murmured. 

They matched glances for a second, WagstaflP smil- 
ing, she half horrified. 

“ Are you clean mad.? ” she asked angrily. “ I was 
beginning to think you a gentleman.” 

Bill threw back his head and laughed. Then on the 
instant he sobered. “Not a gentleman,” he said. 


1 

] 


IN DEEP WATER 


99 


‘‘ I’m just plain man. And lonesome sometimes for a 
mate, as nature has ordained to be the way of flesh.” 

“ Get a squaw, then,” she sneered. “ I’ve heard that 
such people as you do that.” 

“ Not me,” he returned, unruffled. “ I want a woman 
of my own kind.” 

“ Heaven save me from that classification ! ” she ob- 
served, with emphasis on the pronoun. 

“ Yes.? ” he drawled. “ Well, there’s no profit in ar- 
guing that point. Let’s be getting on.” 

He reached for the lead rope of the nearest pack 
horse. 

Hazel urged Silk up a step. ‘‘ Mr. Wagstaff,” she 
cried, “ I must go back.” 

“ You can’t go back without me,” he said. “ And 
I’lit not traveling that way, thank you.” 

“ Please — oh, please ! ” she begged forlornly. 

Roaring Bill’s face hardened. “ I will not,” he said 
flatly. “ I’m going to play the game my way. And 
I’ll play fair. That’s the only promise I will make.” 

She took a look at the encompassing woods, and her 
heart sank at facing those shadowy stretches alone and 
unguided. The truth of his statement that she would 
never reach Cariboo Meadows forced itself home. 
There was but the one way out, and her woman’s wit 
would have to save her. 

“ Go on, then,” she gritted, in a swift surge of an- 
ger. “ I am afraid to face this country alone. I ad- 
mit my helplessness. But so help me Heaven, I’ll make 
you pay for this dirty trick! You’re not a man! 
You’re a cur — a miserable, contemptible scoundrel!” 


100 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ Whew ! ” Roaring Bill laughed. “ Those are 
pretty names. Just the same, I admire your grit. 
Well, here we go ! ” 

He took up the lead rope, and went on without even 
looking back to see if she followed. If he had made 
the slightest attempt to force her to come, if he had be- 
trayed the least uncertainty as to whether she would 
come. Hazel would have swung down from the saddle 
and set her face stubbornly southward in sheer defiance 
of him. But such is the peculiar complexity of a 
woman that she took one longing glance backward, and 
then fell in behind the packs. She was weighted down 
with dread of the unknown, boiling over with rage at 
the man who swung light-footed in the lead ; but never- 
theless she followed him. ^ 


CHAPTER IX 


THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT 

All the rest of that day they bore steadily north- 
ward. Hazel had no idea of Bill Wagstaff’s destina- 
tion. She was too bitter against him to ask, after ad- 
mitting that she could not face the wilderness alone. 
Between going it alone and accompanying him, it seemed 
to be a case of choosing the lesser evil. Curiously she 
felt no fear of Bill Wagstaff in person, and she did 
have a dread vision of what might happen to her if she 
went wandering alone in the woods. There was one 
loophole left to comfort her. It seemed scarcely rea- 
sonable that they could fare on forever without encoun- 
tering other frontier folk. Upon that possibility she 
based her hopes of getting back to civilization, not so 
much for love of civilization as to defeat Roaring Bill’s 
object, to show him that a woman had to be courted 
rather than carried away against her will by any care- 
less, strong-armed male. She knew nothing of the 
North, but she thought there must be some mode of 
communication or transportation. If she could once 
get in touch with other people — well, she would show 
Roaring Bill. Of course, getting back to Cariboo 
Meadows meant a new start in the world, for she had 
no hope, nor any desire, to teach school there after this 
episode. She found herself facing that prospect un- 


102 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


moved, however. The important thing was getting out 
of her present predicament. 

Roaring Bill made his camp that night as if no 
change in their attitude had taken place. To all his 
efforts at con\1ersation she turned a deaf ear and a 
stony countenance. She proposed to eat his food and 
use his bedding, because that was necessary. But so- 
cially she would have none of him. Bill eventually gave 
over trying to talk. But he lost none of his cheerful- 
ness. He lay on his own side of the fire, regarding her 
with the amused tolerance that one bestows upon the 
capricious temper of a spoiled child. 

Thereafter, day by day, the miles unrolled behind 
them. Always Roaring Bill faced straight north. 
For a week he kept on tirelessly, and a consuming de- 
sire to know how far he intended to go began to take 
hold of her. But she would not ask, even when daily 
association dulled the edge of her resentment, and she 
found it hard to keep up her hostile attitude, to nurse 
bitterness against a man who remained serenely unper- 
turbed, and who, for all his apparent lawlessness, 
treated her as a man might treat his sister. 

To her unpracticed eye, the character of the coun- 
try remained unchanged except for minor variations. 
Everywhere the timber stood in serried ranks, spotted 
with lakes and small meadows, and threaded here and 
there with little streams. But at last they dropped into 
a valley where the woods thinned out, and down the cen- 
ter of which flowed a sizable river. This they followed 
north a matter of three days. On the west the valley 
wall ran to a timbered ridge. Eastward the jagged 


THE HOUSE JACK BUILT 


103 


peaks of a snow-capped mountain chain pierced the sky. 

Two hours from their noon camp on the fourth day 
in the valley Hazel sighted some moving objects in the 
distance, angling up on the timber-patched hillside. 
She watched them, at first uncertain whether they were 
moose, which they had frequently encountered, or do- 
mestic animals. Accustomed by now to gauging direc- 
tion at a glance toward the sun, she observed that these 
objects traveled south. 

Presently, as the lines of their respective travel 
brought them nearer, she made them out to be men, 
mounted, and accompanied by packs. She counted the 
riders — five, and as many pack horses. One, she felt 
certain, was a woman — whether white or red she 
could not tell. But — there was safety in numbers. 
And they were going south. 

Upon her first impulse she swung off Silk, and started 
for the hillside, at an angle calculated to intercept the 
pack train. There was a chance, and she was rapidly 
becoming inured to taking chances. At a distance of a 
hundred yards, she looked back, half fearful that Roar- 
ing Bill was at her heels. But he stood with his hands 
in his pockets, watching her. She did not look again 
until she was half a mile up the hill. Then he and his 
packs had vanished. 

So, too, had the travelers that she was hurrying to 
meet. Off the valley floor, she no longer commanded 
the same sweeping outlook. The patches of timber in- 
tervened. As she kept on, she became more uncertain. 
But she bore up the slope until satisfied that she was 
parallel with where they should come out; then she 


104 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


stopped to rest. After a few minutes she climbed far- 
ther, endeavoring to reach a point whence she could see 
more of the slope. In so far had she absorbed wood- 
craft that she now began watching for tracks. There 
were enough of these, but they were the slender, tri- 
angle prints of the shy deer. Nothing resembling the 
hoofmark of a horse rewarded her searching. And be- 
fore long, what with turning this way and that, she 
found herself on a plateau where the pine and spruce 
stood like bristles in a brush, and from whence she could 
see neither valley below nor hillside above. 

She was growing tired. Her feet ached from climb- 
ing, and she was wet with perspiration. She rested 
again, and tried calling. . But her voice sounded muf- 
fled in the timber, and she soon gave over that. The 
afternoon was on the wane, and she began to think of 
and dread the coming of night. Already the sun had 
dipped out of sight behind the western ridges ; his last 
beams were gilding the blue-white pinnacles a hundred 
miles to the east. The shadows where she sat were 
thickening. She had given up hope of finding the pack 
train, and she had cut loose from Roaring Bill. It 
would be just like him to shrug his shoulders and keep 
on going, she thought resentfully. 

As twilight fell a brief panic seized her, followed by 
frightened despair. The wilderness, in its evening hush, 
menaced her with huge emptinesses, utter loneliness. 
She worked her way to the edge of the wooded plateau. 
There was a lingering gleam of yellow and rose pink 
on the distant mountains, but the valley itself lay in a 
blur of shade, out of which rose the faint murmur of 



Roaring Bill Wagstaff stood within five feet of her, resting 
one hand on the muzzle of his grounded rifle. 

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THE HOUSE JACK BUILT 105 

< 

running water, a monotone in the silence. She sat 
down on a dead tree, and cried softly to herself. 

« Well.? ” 

She started, with an involuntary gasp of fear, it was 
so unexpected. Roaring Bill Wagstaff stood within 
five feet of her, resting one hand on the muzzle of his 
grounded rifle, smiling placidly. 

‘‘ Well,” he repeated, “ this chasing up a pack train 
isn’t so easy as it looks, eh.? ” 

She did not answer. Her pride would not allow her 
to admit that she was glad to see him, relieved to be 
overtaken like a truant from school. And Bill did not 
seem to expect a reply. He slung his rifle into the 
crook of his arm. 

“ Come on, little woman,” he said gently. “ I knew 
you’d be tired, and I made camp down below. It isn’t 
far.” 

Obediently she followed him, and as she tramped at his 
heels she saw why he had been able to come up on her 
so noiselessly. He had put on a pair of moccasins, 
and his tread gave forth no sound. 

‘‘ How did you manage to find me ? ” she asked sud- 
denly — the first voluntary speech from her in days. 

Bill answered over his shoulder : 

“Find you.? Bless your soul, your little, high- 
heeled shoes left a trail a one-eyed man could follow. 
I’ve been within fifty yards of you for two hours. 

“ Just the same,” he continued, after a minute’s in- 
terval, “ it’s bad business for you to run off like that. 
Suppose you played hide and seek with me till a storm 
wiped out your track.? You’d be in a deuce of a fix.” 


io6 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


She made no reply. The lesson of the experience was 
not lost on her, but she was not going to tell him so. 

In a short time they reached camp. Roaring Bill 
had tarried long enough to unpack. The horses grazed 
on picket. It was borne in upon her that short of 
actually meeting other people her only recourse lay in 
sticking to Bill WagstafF, whether she liked it or not. 
To strike out alone was courting self-destruction. And 
she began to understand why Roaring Bill made no ef- 
fort to watch or restrain her. He knew the grim 
power of the wilderness. It was his best ally in what 
he had set out to do. 

Within forty-eight hours the stream they followed 
merged itself in another, both wide and deep, which 
flowed west through a level-bottomed valley three miles 
or more in width. Westward the land spread out in a 
continuous roll, marked here and there with jutting 
ridges and isolated peaks ; but on the east a chain of 
rugged mountains marked the horizon as far as she 
could see. 

Roaring Bill halted on the river brink and stripped 
his horses clean, though it was but two in the afternoon 
and their midday fire less than an hour extinguished. 
She watched him curiously. When his packs were off 
he beckoned her. 

“ Hold them a minute,” he said, and put the lead 
ropes in her hand. 

Then he went up the bank into a thicket of saska- 
toons. Out of this he presently emerged, bearing on 
his shoulders a canoe, old and weather-beaten, but 
stanch, for it rode light as a feather on the stream. 


THE HOUSE JACK BUILT 107 

Bill seated himself in the canoe, holding to Silk’s lead 
rope. The other two he left free. 

“ Now,” he directed, “ when I start across, you drive 
Nigger and Satin in if they show signs of hanging back. 
Bounce a rock or two off them if they lag.” 

Her task was an easy one, for Satin and Nigger 
followed Silk unhesitatingly. The river lapped along 
the sleek sides of them for fifty yards. Then they 
dropped suddenly into swimming water, and the cur- 
rent swept them downstream slantwise for the opposite 
shore, only their heads showing above the surface. 
Hazel wondered what river it might be. It was a good 
quarter of a mile wide, and swift. 

Roaring Bill did not trouble to enlighten her as to 
the locality. When he got back he stowed the saddle 
and pack equipment in the canoe. 

“ All aboard for the north side,” he said boyishly. 
And Hazel climbed obediently amidships. 

On the farther side. Bill emptied the canoe, and 
stowed it out of sight in a convenient thicket, repacked 
his horses, and struck out again. They left the valley 
behind, and camped that evening on a great height of 
land that rolled up to the brink of the valley. 

Thereafter the country underwent a gradual change 
as they progressed north, slanting a bit eastward. 
The heavy timber gave way to a sparser growth, and 
that in turn dwindled to scrubby thickets, covering 
great areas of comparative level. Long reaches of 
grassland opened before them, waving yellow in the 
autumn sun. They crossed other rivers of various de- 
grees of depth and swiftness, swimming some and ford- 


io8 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

ing others. Hazel drew upon her knowledge of British 
Columbia geography, and decided that the big river 
where Bill hid his canoe must be the Fraser where it 
debouched from the mountains. And in that case she 
was far north, and in a wilderness indeed. 

Her muscles gradually hardened to the saddle and 
to walking. Her appetite grew in proportion. The 
small supply of eatable dainties that Roaring Bill had 
brought from the Meadows dwindled and disappeared, 
until they were living on bannocks baked a la frontier 
in his frying pan, on beans and coffee, and venison 
killed by the way. Yet she relished the coarse fare 
even while she rebelled against the circumstances of its 
partaking. Occasionally Bill varied the meat diet with 
trout caught in the streams beside which they made 
their various camps. He offered to teach her the se- 
crets of angling, but she shrugged her shoulders by way 
of showing her contempt for Roaring Bill and all his 
works. 

“ Do you realize,” she broke out one evening over the 
fire, “that this is simply abduction.?” 

“ Not at all,” Bill answered promptly. “ Abduc- 
tion means to take away surreptitiously by force, to 
carry away wrongfully and by violence any human 
being, to kidnap. Now, you can’t by any stretch of 
the imagination accuse me of force, violence, or kid- 
naping — not by a long shot. You merely wandered 
into my camp, and it wasn’t convenient for me to turn 
back. Therefore circumstances — not my act, remem- 
ber — made it advisable for you to accompany me. Of 
course I’ll admit that, according to custom and usage. 


THE HOUSE JACK BUILT 


log 


you would expect me to do the polite thing and restore 
you to your own stamping ground. But there’s no 
law making it mandatory for a fellow to pilot home a 
lady in distress. Isn’t that right.? 

“ Anyhow,” he went on, when she remained silent, “ I 
didn’t. And you’ll have to lay the blame on nature for 
making you a wonderfully attractive woman. I did 
honestly try to find the way to Cariboo Meadows that 
first night. It was only when I found myself thinking 
how fine it would be to pike through these old woods 
and mountains with a partner like you that I decided 

— as I did. I’m human — the woman, she tempted me. 
And aren’t you better off.? I could hazard a guess that 
you were running away from yourself — or something 

— when you struck Cariboo Meadows. And what’s 
Cariboo Meadows but a little blot on the face of this 
fair earth, where you were tied to a deadly routine in 
order to earn your daily bread.? You don’t care two 
whoops about anybody there. Here you are free — 
free in every sense of the word. You have no responsi- 
bility except what you impose on yourself ; no board 
bills to pay; nobody to please but your own little self. 
You’ve got the clean, wide land for a bedroom, and the 
sky for its ceiling, instead of a stuffy little ten-by-ten 
chamber. Do you know that you look fifty per cent 
better for these few days of living in the open — the 
way every normal being likes to live.? You’re getting 
some color in your cheeks, and you’re losing that 
worried, archangel look. Honest, if I were a physician, 
I’d have only one prescription: Get out into the wild 
country, and live off the country as your primitive 


no 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


forefathers did. Of course, you can’t do that alone. 

I know because I’ve tried it. We humans don’t differ 
so greatly from the other animals. We’re made to hunt 
in couples or packs. There’s a purpose, a law, you 
might say, behind that, too; only it’s terribly obscured 
by a lot of other nonessentials in this day and age. 

“ Is there any comparison between this sort of life, 
for instance — if it appeals to one at all — and being 
a stenographer and bucking up against the things any 
good-looking, unprotected girl gets up against in a 
city? You know, if you’d be frank, that there isn’t. 
Shucks ! Herding in the mass, and struggling for a 
mere subsistence, like dogs over a bone, degenerates 
man physically, mentally, and morally — ■ all our 
vaunted civilization and culture to the contrary not- 
withstanding. Eh?” 

But she would not take up the cudgels against him, 
would not seem to countenance or condone his offense 
by discussing it from any angle- whatsoever. And she 
was the more determined to allow no degree of friendli- 
ness, even in conversation, because she recognized the 
masterful quality of the man. She told herself that 
she could have liked Roaring Bill Wagstaff very well 
if he had not violated what she considered the rules of 
the game. And she had no mind to allow his personality 
tp sweep her off her feet in the same determined man- 
ner that he had carried her into the wilderness. She 
was no longer afraid of him. She occasionally for- ; 



grievance against him. At such times the wild land, | 
the changing vistas the journey opened up, charmed 


THE HOUSE JACK BUILT 


III 


her into genuine enjoyment. She would find herself 
smiling at BilPs quaint tricks of speech. Then she 
would recollect that she was, to all intents and pur- 
poses, a prisoner, the captive of his bow and spear. 
That was maddening. 

After a lapse of time they dropped into another 
valley, and faced westward to a mountain range which 
Bill told her was the Rockies. The next day a snow- 
storm struck them. At daybreak the clouds were 
massed overhead, lowering, and a dirty gray. An un- 
common chill, a rawness of atmosphere foretold the 
change. And shortly after they broke camp the first 
snowflakes began to drift down, slowly at first, then 
more rapidly, until the grayness of the sky and the 
misty woods were enveloped in the white swirl of the 
storm. It was not particularly cold. Bill wrapped 
her in a heavy canvas coat, and plodded on. Noon 
passed, and he made no stop. If anything, he increased 
his pace. 

Suddenly, late in the afternoon, they stepped out of 
the timber into a little clearing, in which the blurred 
outline of a cabin showed under the wide arms of a 
leafless tree. 

The melting snow had soaked through the coat; her 
feet were wet with the clinging flakes, and the chill of 
a lowering temperature had set Hazel shivering. 

Roaring Bill halted at the door and lifted her down 
from Silk’s back without the formality of asking her 
leave. He pulled the latchstring, and led her in. Be- 
side the rude stone fireplace wood and kindling were 
piled in readiness for use. Bill kicked the door shut. 


II2 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


dropped on his knees, and started the fire. In five min- 
utes a great blaze leaped and crackled into the wide 
throat of the chimney. Then he piled on more wood, 
and turned to her. 

“ This is the house that Jack built,” he said, with a 
sober face and a twinkle in his gray eyes. “ This is 
the man that lives in the house that Jack built. And 
this ” — he pointed mischievously at her — ‘‘ is the 
woman who’s going to love the man that lives in the 
house that Jack built.” 

“ That’s a lie ! ” she flashed stormily through her 
chattering teeth. 

“ Well, we’ll see,” he answered cheerfully. “ Get up 
here close to the fire and take off those wet things while 
I put away the horses.” 

And with that he went out, whistling. 


CHAPTER X 


A LITTI.E PERSONAL HISTORY 

Hazel discarded the wet coat, and, drawing a chair 
up to the fire, took off her sopping footgear and toasted 
her bare feet at the blaze. Her clothing was also wet, 
and she wondered pettishly how in the world she was 
going to manage with only the garments on her back — 
and those dirty and torn from hacking through the 
brush for a matter of two weeks. According to her 
standards, that was roughing it with a vengeance. But 
presently she gave over thinking of her plight. The 
fire warmed her, and, with the chill gone from her body, 
she bestowed a curious glance on her surroundings. 

Her experience of homes embraced only homes of two 
sorts — the middle-class, conventional sort to which she 
had been accustomed, and the few poorly furnished 
frontier dwellings she had entered since coming to the 
hinterlands of British Columbia. She had a vague 
impression that any dwelling occupied exclusively by 
a man must of necessity be dirty, disordered, and cheer- 
less. But she had never seen a room such as the one 
she now found herself in. It conformed to none of 
her preconceived ideas. 

There was furniture of a sort unknown to her, tables 
and chairs fashioned by hand with infinite labor and 
rude skill, massive in structure, upholstered with the 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


skins of wild beasts common to the region. Upon the 
walls hung pictures, dainty black-and-white prints, 
and a water color or two. And between the pic- 
tures were nailed heads of mountain sheep and goat, 
the antlers of deer and caribou. Above the fire- 
place spread the huge shovel horns of a moose, 
bearing across the prongs a shotgun and fishing rods. 
The center of the floor — itself, as she could see, of 
hand-smoothed logs — was lightened with a great black 
and red and yellow rug of curious weave. Covering 
up the bare surface surrounding it were bearskins, black 
and brown. Her feet rested in the fur of a monster 
silvertip, fur thicker and softer than the pile of any 
carpet ever fabricated by man. All around the walls 
ran shelves filled with books. A guitar stood in one 
corner, a mandolin in another. The room was all of 
sixteen by twenty feet, and it was filled with trophies 
of the wild — and books. 

Except for the dust that had gathered lightly in its 
owner’s absence, the place was as neat and clean as 
if the housemaid had but gone over it. Hazel shrugged 
her shoulders. Roaring Bill Wagstaff became, if any- 
thing, more of an enigma than ever, in the light of his 
dwelling. She recollected that Cariboo Meadows had 
regarded him askance, and wondered why. 

He came in while her gaze was still roving from one 
object to another, and threw his wet outer clothing, 
boy fashion, on the nearest chair. 

“ Well,” he said, ‘‘ we’re here.” 

“ Please don’t forget, Mr. Wagstaff,” she replied 
coldly, “ that I would much prefer 7iot to be here.” 


A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY 115 


He stood a moment regarding her with his odd smile. 
Then he went into the adjoining room. Out of this 
he presently emerged, dragging a small steamer trunk. 
He opened it, got down on his knees, and pawed over 
the contents. Hazel, looking over her shoulder, saw 
that the trunk was filled with woman’s garments, and 
sat amazed. 

“ Say, little person,” Bill finally remarked, “ it looks 
to me as if you could outfit yourself completely right 
here.” 

“ I don’t know that I care to deck myself in another 
woman’s finery, thank you,” she returned perversely. 

“ Now, see here,” Roaring Bill turned reproachfully; 
“ see here — ” 

He grinned to himself then, and went again into the 
other room, returning with a small, square mirror. He 
planted himself squarely in front of her, and held up 
the glass. Hazel took one look at her reflection, and 
she could have struck Roaring Bill for his audacity. 
She had not realized what an altogether disreputable 
appearance a normally good-looking young woman 
could acquire in two weeks on the trail, with no toilet 
accessories and only the clothes on her back. She 
tried to snatch the mirror from him, but Bill eluded 
her reach, and laid the glass on the table. 

“ You’ll feel a whole better able to cope with the 
situation,” he told her smilingly, “ when you get some 
decent clothes on and your hair fixed. That’s a woman. 
And you don’t need to feel squeamish about these things. 
This trunk’s got a history, let me tell you. A bunch 
of simon-pure tenderfeet strayed into the mountains 


ii6 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

west of here a couple of summers ago. There were 
two women in the bunch. The youngest one, who was 
about your age and size, must have had more than her 
share of vanity. I guess she figured on charming the 
bear and the moose, or the simple aborigines who dwell 
in this neck of the woods. Anyhow, she had all kinds 
of unnecessary fixings along, that trunkful of stuff 
in the lot. You can imagine what a nice time their 
guides had packing that on a horse, eh.? They got 
into a deuce of a pickle finally, and had to abandon a 
lot of their stuff, among other things the steamer trunk. 

I lent them a hand, and they told me to help myself 
to the stuff. So I did 'kfter they were out of the 
country. That’s how you come to have a wardrobe 
all ready to your hand. Now, you’d be awful foolish 
to act like a mean and stiff-necked female person. 
You’re not going to, are you?” he wheedled. “Be- 
cause I want to make you comfortable. What’s the 
use of getting on your dignity over a little thing like 
clothes ? ” 

“ I don’t Intend to,” Hazel suddenly changed front. 

“ I’ll make myself as comfortable as I can — partic- 
ularly if it will put you to any trouble.” 

“ You’re bound to scrap, eh? ” he grinned. “ But 
it takes two to build a fight, and I positively refuse to 
fight with you” 

He dragged the trunk back into the room, and came 
out carrying a great armful of masculine belongings. 
Two such trips he made, piling all his things onto a ; 
chair. ; 

“ There ! ” he said at last. “ That end of the house | 


A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY 117 


belongs to you, little person. Now, get those wet things 
off before you catch a cold. Oh, wait a minute ! ” 

He disappeared into the kitchen end of the house, 
and came back with a wash-basin and a pail of water. 

“ Your room is now ready, madam, an it please you.” 
He bowed with mock dignity, and went back into the 
kitchen. 

Hazel heard him rattling pots and dishes, whistling 
cheerfully the while. She closed the door, and busied 
herself with an inventory of the tenderfoot lady’s trunk. 
In it she found everything needful for complete 
change, and a variety of garments to boot. Folded in 
the bottom of the trunk was a gray cloth skirt and a 
short blue silk kimono. There was a coat and skirt, 
too, of brown corduroy. But the feminine instinct as- 
serted itself, and she laid out the gray skirt and the 
kimono. 

For a dresser Roaring Bill had fashioned a wide 
shelf, and on it she found a toilet set complete — hand 
mirror, military brushes, and sundry articles, backed 
with silver and engraved with his initials. Perhaps 
with a spice of malice, she put on a few extra touches. 
There would be some small satisfaction in tantalizing 
Bill Wagstaff — even if she could not help feeling that 
it might be a dangerous game. And, thus arrayed in 
the weapons of her sex, she slipped on the kimono, and 
went into the living-room to the cheerful glow of the 
fire. 

Bill remained busy in the kitchen. Dusk fell. The 
gleam of a light showed through a crack in the door. 
In the big room only the fire gave battle to the shadows, 


ii8 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

throwing a ruddy glow into the far corners. Pres- 
ently Bill came in with a pair of candles which he set 
on the mantel above the fireplace. 

“By Jove!” he said, looking down at her. “You 
look good enough to eat! I’m not a cannibal, how- 
ever,” he continued hastily, when Hazel flushed. She 
was not used to such plain speaking. “ And supper’s 
ready. Come on ! ” 

The table was set. Moreover, to her surprise — and 
yet not so greatly to her surprise, for she was begin- 
ning to expect almost anything from this paradoxical 
young man — it was spread with linen, and the cutlery 
was silver, the dishes china, in contradistinction to the 
tinware of his camp outfit. 

As a cook Roaring Bill Wagstaff had no cause to 
be ashamed of himself, and Hazel enjoyed the meal, 
particularly since she had eaten nothing since six in 
the morning. After a time, when her appetite was 
partially satisfied, she took to glancing over his kitchen. 
There seemed to be some adjunct of a kitchen missing. 
A fire burned on a hearth similar to the one in the liv- 
ing room. Pots stood about the edge of the fire. But 
there was no sign of a stove. 

Bill finished eating, and resorted to cigarette ma- 
terial instead of his pipe. 

“ Well, little person,” he said at last, “ what do you 
think of this joint of mine, anyway.? ” 

“ I’ve just been wondering,” she replied. “ I don’t 
see any stove, yet you have food here that looks as if it 
were baked, and biscuits that must have been cooked 
in an oven.” 


A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY 119 

You see no stove for the good and sufficient reason,” 
he returned, “ that you can’t pack a stove on a horse — 
and we’re three hundred odd miles from the end of any 
wagon road. With a Dutch oven or two — that heavy, 
round iron thing you see there — I can guarantee to 
cook almost anything you can cook on a stove. Any- 
body can if they know how. Besides, I like things bet- 
ter this way. If I didn’t, I suppose I’d have a stove 
— and maybe a hot-water supply, and modem plumb- 
ing. As it is, it affords me a sort of prideful satisfac- 
tion, which you may or may not be able to understand, 
that this cabin and everything in it is the work of my 
hands — of stuff I’ve packed in here with all sorts of 
effort from the outside. Maybe I’m a freak. But 
I’m proud of this place. Barring the inevitable lone- 
someness that comes now and then, I can be happier 
here than any place I’ve ever struck yet. This coun- 
try grows on one.” 

“ Yes — on one’s nerves,” Hazel retorted. 

Bill smiled, and, rising, began to clear away the 
dishes. Hazel resisted an impulse to help. She wovld 
not work ; she would not lift her finger to any task, she 
reminded herself. He had put her in her present posi- 
tion, and he could wait on her. So she rested an elbow 
on the table and watched him. In the midst of his work 
he stopped suddenly. 

“ There’s oceans of time to do this,” he observed. 
‘‘ I’m just a wee bit tired, if anybody should ask you. 
Let’s camp in the other room. It’s a heap more comfy.” 

He put more wood on the kitchen fire, and set a pot 
of water to heat. Out in the living-room Hazel drew 


120 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


her chair to one side of the hearth. Bill sprawled on 
the bearskin robe with another cigarette in his fingers. 

“ No,” he began, after a long silence, “ this coun- 
try doesn’t get on one’s nerves — not if one is a nor- 
mal human being. You’ll find that. When I first came 
up here I thought so, too ; it seemed so big and empty 
and forbidding. But the more I see of it the better it 
compares with the outer world, where the extremes of 
luxury and want are always in evidence. It began to 
seem like home to me when I first looked down into this 
little basin. I had a partner then. I said to him: 
‘ Here’s a dandy, fine place to winter.’ So we wintered 
— in a log shack sixteen foot square that Silk and Satin 
and Nigger have for a stable now. When summer 
came my partner wanted to move on, so I stayed. 
Stayed and began to build for the next winter. And 
I’ve been working at it ever since, making little things 
like chairs and tables and shelves, and fixing up game 
heads whenever I got an extra good one. And maybe 
two or three times a year I’d go out. Get restless, you 
know. I’m not really a hermit by nature. Lord, the 
things I’ve packed in here from the outside ! Books — 
I hired a whole pack train at Ashcroft once to bring in 
just books ; they thought I was crazy, I guess. I’ve 
quit this place once or twice, but I always come back. 
It’s got that home feel that I can’t find anywhere else. 
Only it has always lacked one important home quali- 
fication,” he finished softly. “ Do you ever build air 
castles ? ” 

“ No,” Hazel answered untruthfully, uneasy at the 
trend of his talk. She was learning that Bill Wag- 


A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY 121 


staff, for all his gentleness and patience with her, was 
a persistent mortal. 

“ Well, I do,” he continued, unperturbed. “ Lots of 
’em. But mostly around one thing — a woman — a 
dream woman — because I never saw one that seemed 
to fit in until I ran across you.” 

“ Mr. Wagstaff,” Hazel pleaded, ‘‘ won’t you please 
stop talking like that.? It isn’t — it isn’t — ” 

“ Isn’t proper, I suppose,” Bill supplied dryly. 
“ Now, that’s merely an error, and a fundamental error 
on your part, little person. Our emotion and instincts 
are perfectly proper when you get down to funda- 
mentals. You’ve got an artificial standard to judge 
by, that’s all. And I don’t suppose you have the least 
idea how many lives are spoiled one way and another 
by the operation of those same artificial standards in 
this little old world. Now, I may seem to you a law- 
less, unprincipled individual indeed, because I’ve acted 
contrary to your idea of the accepted order of things. 
But here’s my side of it: I’m in search of happiness. 
We all are. I have a few ideals — and very few il- 
lusions. I don’t quite believe in this thing called love 
at first sight. That presupposes a volatility of emo- 
tion that people of any strength of character are not 
likely to indulge in. But — for instance, a man can 
have a very definite ideal of the*kind of woman he would 
like for a mate, the kind of woman he could be happy 
with and could make happy. And whenever he finds a 
woman who corresponds to that ideal he’s apt to make 
a strenuous attempt to get her. That’s pretty much 
how I felt about you.” 


122 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ You had no right to kidnap me,” Hazel cried. 

“ You had no business getting lost and making it 
possible for me to carry you off,” Bill replied. Isn’t 
that logic ? ” 

“ I’ll never forgive you,” Hazel flashed. It was 
treacherous and unmanly. There are other ways of 
winning a woman.” 

“ There wasn’t any other way open to me,” Bill 
grew suddenly moody. “ Not with you in Cariboo 
Meadows. I’m taboo there. You’d have got a his- 
tory of me that would have made you cut me dead ; you 
may have had the tale of my misdeeds for all I know. 
No, it was impossible for me to get acquainted with you 
in the conventional way. I knew that, and so I didn’t 
make any effort. Why, I’d have been at your elbow 
when you left the supper table at Jim Briggs’ that 
night if I hadn’t known how it would be. I went 
there out of sheer curiosity to take a look at you — 
maybe out of a spirit of defiance, too, because I knew 
that I was certainly not welcome even if they were will- 
ing to take my money for a meal. And I came away all 
up in the air. There was something about you — the 
tone of your voice, the way your proud little head is set 
on your shoulders, your make-up in general — that sent 
me away with a large-sized grouch at myself, at Cari- 
boo Meadows, and at you for coming in my way.” 

“Why?” she asked in wonder. 

“ Because you’d have believed what they told you, 
and Cariboo Meadows can’t tell anything about me that 
isn’t bad,” he said quietly. “ My record there makes 
me entirely unfit to associate with — that would have 


A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY 123 


been your conclusion. And I wanted to be with you, 
to talk to you, to take you by storm and make you like 
me as I felt I could care for you. You can’t have 
grown up, little person, without realizing that you do 
attract men very strongly. All women do, but some 
far more than others.” 

“ Perhaps,” she admitted coldly. “ Men have an- 
noyed me with their unwelcome attentions. But none 
of them ever dared go the length of carrying me away 
against my will. You can’t explain or excuse that.” 

“ I’m not attempting excuses,” Bill made answer. 
“ There are two things I never do — apologize or bully. 
I dare say that’s one reason the Meadows gives me such 
a black eye. In the first place, the confounded, ig- 
norant fools did me a very great injustice, and I’ve 
never taken the trouble to explain to them wherein they 
were wrong. I came into this country with a partner 
six years ago — a white man, if ever one lived — about 
the only real man friend I ever had. He was known to 
have over three thousand dollars on his person. He 
took sick and died the second year, at the head of the 
Peace, in midwinter. I buried him; couldn’t take him 
out. Somehow the yam got to going in the Meadows 
that I’d murdered him for his money. The gossip 
started there because we had an argument about out- 
fitting while we were there, and roasted each other as 
only real pals can. So they got it into their heads I 
killed him, and tried to have the provincial police in- 
vestigate. It made me hot, and so I wouldn’t explain 
to anybody the circumstances, nor what became of 
Dave’s three thousand, which happened to be five thou- 


124 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


sand by that time, and which I sent to his mother and 
sister in New York, as he told me to do when he was 
dying. When they got to hinting things the next time 
I hit the Meadows, I started in to clean out the town. 
I think I whipped about a dozen men that time. And 
once or twice every season since I’ve been in the habit 
of dropping in there and raising the very devil out of 
sheer resentment. It’s a wonder some fellow hasn’t 
killed me, for it’s a fact that I’ve thrashed every man 
in the blamed place except Jim Briggs — and some of 
them two or three times. And I make them line up at 
the bar and drink at my expense, and all that sort of 
foolishness. 

“ That may sound to you like real depravity,” he 
concluded, “ but it’s a fact in nature that a man has 
to blow the steam off his chest about every so often. I 
have got drunk in Cariboo Meadows, and I have raised 
all manner of disturbances there, partly out of pure 
animal spirits, and mostly because I had a grudge 
against them. Consequently I really have given them 
reason to look askance at any one — particularly a nice 
girl from the East — who would have anything to do 
with me. If they weren’t a good deal afraid of me, and 
always laying for a chance to do me up, they wouldn’t 
let me stay in the town overnight. So you can see what 
a handicap I was under when it came to making your 
acquaintance and courting you in the orthodox man- 
ner.” 

“ You’ve made a great mistake,” she said bitterly, 
“ if you think you’ve removed the handicap. I’ve suf- 
fered a great deal at the hands of men in the past six 


A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY 125 


months. I’m beginning to believe that all men are 
brutes at heart.” 

Roaring Bill sat up and clasped his hands over his 
knees and stared fixedly into the fire. 

“ No,” he said slowly, ‘‘ all men are not brutes — 
any more than all women are angels. I’ll convince you 
of that.” 

“ Take me home, then,” she cried forlornly. ‘‘ That’s 
the only way you can convince me or make amends.” 

“ No,” Bill murmured, “ that isn’t the way. Wait 
till you know me better. Besides, I couldn’t take you 
out now if I wanted to without exposing you to greater 
hardships than you’ll have to endure here. Do you 
realize that it’s fall, and we’re in the high latitudes? 
This snow may not go off at all. Even if it does it 
will storm again before a week. You couldn’t wallow 
through snow to your w'aist in forty-below-zero 
weather.” 

“ People will pass here, and I’ll get word out,” Hazel 
asserted desperately. 

“What good would that ^do you? You’ve got too 
much conventional regard for what you term j^our 
reputation to send word to Cariboo Meadows that you’re 
living back here with Roaring Bill WagstafF, and won’t 
some one please come and rescue you.” He paused to 
let that sink in, then continued : “ Besides, you won’t 

see a white face before spring ; then only by accident. 
No one in the North, outside of a few Indians, has ever 
seen this cabin or knows where it stands.” 

She sat there, dumb, raging inwardly. For the min- 
ute she could have killed Roaring Bill. She who had 


126 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


been so sure in her independence carried, whether or 
no, into the heart of the wilderness at the whim of a man 
who stood a self-confessed rowdy, in ill repute among 
his own kind. There was a slumbering devil in Miss 
Hazel Weir, and it took little to wake her temper. She 
looked at Bill WagstafF, and her breast heaved. He 
was responsible, and he could sit coolly talking about 
it. The resentment that had smoldered against An- 
drew Bush and Jack Barrow concentrated on Roaring 
Bill as the arch offender of them all. And lest she 
yield to a savage impulse to scream at him, she got up 
and ran into the bedroom, slammed the door shut be- 
hind her, and threw herself across the bed to muffle the 
sound of her crying in a pillow. 

After a time she lifted her head. Outside, the wind 
whistled gustily around the cabin corners. In the 
hushed intervals she heard a steady pad, pad, sound- 
ing sometimes close by her door, again faintly at the 
far end of the room. A beam of light shone through 
the generous latchstring hole in the door. Stealing 
softly over, she peeped through this hole. From end 
to end of the big room and back again Roaring Bill 
paced slowly, looking straight ahead of him with a fixed, 
absent stare, his teeth closed on his nether lip. Hazel 
blinked wonderingly. Many an hour in the last three 
months she had walked the floor like that, biting her 
lip in mental agony. And then, while she was looking. 
Bill abruptly extinguished the candles. In the red 
gleam from the hearth she saw him go into the kitchen, 
closing the door softly. After that there was no sound 
but the swirl of the storm brushing at her window. 


CHAPTER XI 


WINTER AND A TRUCE 

In line with Roaring Bill’s forecast, the weather 
cleared for a brief span, and then winter shut down in 
earnest. Successive falls of snow overlaid the earth 
with a three-foot covering, loose and feathery in the 
depths of the forest, piled in hard, undulating windrows 
in the scattered openings. Daily the cold increased, 
till a half-inch layer of frost stood on the cabin panes. 
The cold, intense, unremitting, lorded it over a vast 
realm of wood and stream ; lakes and rivers were locked 
fast under ice, and through the clear, still nights the 
aurora flaunted its shimmering banners across the 
northern sky. 

But within the cabin they were snug and warm. 
Bill’s ax kept the woodpile high. The two fireplaces 
shone red the twenty-four hours through. Of flour, 
tea, coffee, sugar, beans, and such stuff as could only 
be gotten from the outside he had a plentiful supply. 
Potatoes and certain vegetables that he had grown in a 
cultivated patch behind the cabin were stored in a deep 
cellar. He could always sally forth and get meat. 
And the ice was no bar to fishing, for he would cut a 
hole, sink a small net, and secure overnight a week’s 
supply of trout and whitefish. Thus their material 
wants were provided for. 


128 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


As time passed Hazel gradually shook off a measure 
of her depression, thrust her uneasiness and resentment 
into the background. As a matter of fact, she resigned 
herself to getting through the winter, since that was in- 
evitable. She was out of the world, the only world she 
knew, and by reason of the distance and the snows there 
was scant chance of getting back to that world while 
winter gripped the North. The spring might bring 
salvation. But spring was far in the future, too far 
ahead to dwell upon. As much as possible, she re- 
frained from thinking, wisely contenting herself with 
getting through one day after another. 

And in so doing she fell into the way of doing little 
things about the house, finding speedily that time flew 
when she busied herself at some task in the intervals of 
delving in Roaring Bill’s library. 

She could cook — and she did. Her first meal came 
about by grace of Roaring Bill’s absence. He was hunt- 
ing, and supper time drew nigh. She grew hungry, 
and, on the impulse of the moment, turned herself loose 
in the kitchen — largely in a mood for experiment. 
She had watched Bill make all manner of things in his 
Dutch ovens, and observed how he prepared meat over 
the glowing coals often enough to get the hang of it. 
Wherefore, her first meal was a success. When Roar- 
ing Bill came in, an hour after dark, he found her with 
cheeks rosy from leaning over the fire, and a better meal 
than he could prepare all waiting for him. He washed j 
and sat down. Hazel discarded her flour-sack apron | 
and took her place opposite. Bill made no comment I 
until he had finished and lighted a cigarette. 5 


WINTER— -AND A TRUCE 129 

“ You’re certainly a jewel, little person,” he drawled 
then. “ How many more accomplishments have you 
got up your sleeve ? ” 

“ Do you consider ordinary cooking an accomplish- 
ment ? ” she returned lightly. 

“ I surely do,” he replied, “ when I remember what 
an awful mess I made of it on the start. I certainly did 
spoil a lot of good grub.” 

After that they divided the household duties, and 
Hazel forgot that she had vowed to make Bill WagstafF 
wait on her hand and foot as the only penalty she could 
inflict for his misdeeds. It seemed petty when she con- 
sidered the matter, and there was nothing petty about 
Hazel Weir. If the chance ever offered, she would 
make him suffer, but in the meantime there was no use 
in being childish. 

She did not once experience the drear loneliness that 
had sat on her like a dead weight the last month before 
she turned her back on Granville and its unhappy as- 
sociations. For one thing. Bill Wagstaff kept her in- 
tellectually on the jump. He was always precipitat- 
ing an argument or discussion of some sort, in which 
she invariably came off second best. His scope of 
knowledge astonished her, as did his language. Bill 
mixed slang, the colloquialisms of the frontier, and the 
terminology of modern scientific thought with quaint 
impartiality. There were times when he talked clear 
over her head. And he was by turns serious and boy- 
ish, with always a saving sense of humor. So that she 
was eternally discovering new sides to him. 

The other refuge for her was his store of books. 


130 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Upon the shelves she found many a treasure-trove — 
books that she had promised herself to read some day 
when she could buy them and had leisure. Roaring Bill 
had collected bits of the world’s best in poetry and fic- 
tion ; and last, but by no means least, the books that 
stand for evolution and revolution, philosophy, eco- 
nomics, sociology, and the kindred sciences. Bill was 
not orderly. He could put his finger on any book he 
wanted, but on his shelves like as not she would find 
a volume of Haeckel and another of Bobbie Burns side 
by side, or a last year’s novel snuggling up against a 
treatise on social psychology. She could not under- 
stand why a man — a young man — with the intellectual 
capacity to digest the stuff that Roaring Bill frequently 
became immersed in should choose to bury himself in 
the wilderness. And once, in an unguarded moment, 
she voiced that query. Bill closed a volume of Nietz- 
sche, marking the place with his forefinger, and looked 
at her thoughtfully over the book. 

“ Well,” he said, ‘‘ there are one or two good and 
sufficient reasons, to which you, of course, may not 
agree. First, though. I’ll venture to assert that your 
idea of the nature and purpose of life as we humans 
know and experience it is rather hazy. Have you ever 
seriously asked yourself why we exist as entities at all.?* 
And, seeing that we do find ourselves possessed of this 
existence, what constrains us to act along certain 
lines ? ” 

Hazjel shook her head. That was an abstraction 
which she had never considered. She had been too busy 
living to make a critical analysis of life. She had 


WINTER — AND A TRUCE 


131 

the average girl’s conception of life, when she thought 
of it at all, as a state of being bom, of growing up, of 
marrying, of trying to be happy, and ultimately — 
very remotely — of dying. And she had also the con- 
ventional idea that activity in the world, the world as 
she knew it, the doing of big things in a public or semi- 
public way, was the proper sphere for people of ex- 
ceptional ability. But why this should be so, what 
law, natural or fabricated by man, made it so she had 
never asked herself. She had found it so, and taken 
it for granted. Roaring Bill WagstafF was the first 
man to cross her path who viewed the struggle for 
wealth and fame and power as other than inevitable 
and desirable. 

“ You see, little person,” he went on, “ we have some 
very definite requirements which come of the will 
to live that dominates all life. We must eat, 
we must protect our bodies against the elements, and 
we need for comfort some sort of shelter. But in se- 
curing these essentials to self-preservation where is the 
difference, except in method, between the banker who ma- 
nipulates millions and the post-hole digger on the farm? 
Not a darned bit, in reality. They’re both after ex- 
actly the same thing — security against want. If the 
post-hole digger’s wants are satisfied by two dollars a 
day he is getting the same result as the banker, whose 
standard of living crowds his big income. Having se- 
cured the essentials, then, what is the next urge of life? 
Happiness. That, however, brings us to a more ab- 
stract question. 

“ In the main, though, that’s my answer to your 


132 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


question. Here I can secure myself a good living — 
as a matter of fact, I can easily get the wherewithal to 
purchase any luxuries that I desire — and it is gotten 
without a petty-larceny struggle with my fellow men. 
Here I exploit only natural resources, take only what 
the earth has prodigally provided. Why should I live 
in the smoke and sordid clutter of a town when I love 
the clean outdoors The best citizen is the man with 
a sound mind and a strong, healthy body ; and the only 
obligation any of us has to society is not to be a bur- 
den on society. So I live in the wilds the greater part 
of the year, I keep my muscles in trim, and I have al- 
ways food for myself and for any chance wayfarer — 
and I can look everybody in the eye and tell them to 
go to the fiery regions if I happen to feel that way. 
What business would I have running a grocery store, 
or a bank, or a real-estate office, when all my instincts 
rebel against it? What normal being wants to be 
chained to a desk between four walls eight or ten hours 
a day fifty weeks in the year? I’ll bet a nickel there 
was many a time when you were clacking a typewriter 
for a living that you’d have given anything to get out 
in the green fields for a while. Isn’t that so ? ” 

Hazel admitted it. 

“ You see,” Bill concluded, ‘‘ this civilization of ours, 
with its peculiar business ethics, and its funny little air 
of importance, is a comparatively recent thing — a 
product of the last two or three thousand years, to give 
it its full historic value. And mankind has been a great 
many millions of years in the making, all of which has 
been spent under primitive conditions. So that we are 


WINTER — AND A TRUCE 


133 


as yet barbarians, savages even, with just a little 
veneer. Why, man, as such, is only beginning to get a 
glimmering of his relation to the universe. Pshaw, 
though ! I didn’t set out to deliver a lecture on evolu- 
tion. But, believe me, little person, if I thought that 
any great good or happiness would result from my be- 
ing elsewhere, from scrapping with my fellows in the 
world crush, I’d be there with both feet. Do you think 
you’d be more apt to care for me if I were to get out 
and try to set the world afire with great deeds ” 

“ That wasn’t the question,” she returned distantly, 
trying, as she always did, to keep him off the personal 
note. 

“ But it is the question with me,” he declared. “ I 
don’t know why I let you go on flouting me.” He 
reached over and caught her arm with a grip that made 
her wince. The sudden leap of passion into his eyes 
quickened the beat of her heart. “ I could break you 
in two with my hands without half trying — tame you 
as the cave men tamed their women, by main strength. 
But I don’t — by reason of the same peculiar feeling 
that would keep me from kicking a man when he was 
down, I suppose. Little person, why can’t you like me 
better ? ” 

“ Because you tricked me,” she retorted hotly. 
“ Because I trusted you, and you used that trust to 
lead me farther astray. Any woman would hate a man 
for that. What do you suppose — you, with your 
knowledge of life — the world will think of me when I 
get out of here ? ” 

But Roaring Bill had collected himself, and sat smil- 


134 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


ing, and made no reply. He looked at her thoughtfully 
for a few seconds, then resumed his reading of the 
Mad Philosopher, out of whose essays he seemed to ex- 
tract a great deal of quiet amusement. 

A day or two after that Hazel came into the kitchen 
and found Bill piling towels, napkins, and a great 
quantity of other soiled articles on an outspread table- 
cloth. 

“ Well,” she inquired, “ what are you going to do 
with those.?” 

‘‘ Take ’em to the laundry,” he laughed. “ Collect 
your dirty duds, and bring them forth.” 

“ Laundry ! ” Hazel echoed. It seemed rather a far- 
fetched joke. 

‘‘ Sure ! You don’t suppose we can get along for- 
ever without having things washed, do you.? ” he re- 
plied. “ I don’t mind housework, but I do draw the 
line at a laundry job when I don’t have to do it. Go 
on — get your clothes.” 

So she brought out her accumulation of garments, 
and laid them on the pile. Bill tied up the four cor- 
ners of the tablecloth. 

‘‘ Now,” said he, “ let’s see if we can’t fit you out 
for a more or less extended walk. You stay in the 
house altogether too much these days. That’s bad busi- 
ness. Nothing like exercise in the fresh air.” 

Thus in a few minutes Hazel fared forth, wrapped in 
Bill’s fur coat, a flap-eared cap on her head, and on her 
feet several pairs of stockings inside moccasins that 
Bill had procured from some mysterious source a day 
or two before. 


WINTER — AND A TRUCE 


135 


The day was sunny, albeit the air was hazy with mul- 
titudes of floating frost particles, and the tramp through 
the forest speedily brought the roses back to her cheeks. 
Bill carried the bundle of linen on his back, and trudged 
steadily through the woods. But the riddle of his des- 
tination was soon read to her, for a two-mile walk 
brought them out on the shore of a fair-sized lake, on 
the farther side of which loomed the conical lodges of 
an Indian camp. 

“You sabe now?” said he as tliey crossed the ice. 
“ This bunch generally comes in here about this time, 
and stays till spring. I get the squaws to wash for 
me. Ever see Mr. Indian on his native heath ? ” 

Hazel never had, and she was duly interested, even 
if a trifle shy of the red brother who stared so fixedly. 
She entered a lodge with Bill, and listened to him make 
laundry arrangements in broken English with a with- 
ered old beldame whose features resembled a ham that 
had hung overlong in the smokehouse. Two or three 
blanketed bucks squatted by the fire that sent its blue 
smoke streaming out the apex of the lodge. 

“ Heap fine squaw ! ” one suddenly addressed Bill. 
“ Where you ketchum ? ” 

Bill laughed at Hazel’s confusion. “ Away off.” 
He gestured southward, and the Indian grunted some 
unintelligible remark in his own tongue — at which 
Roaring Bill laughed again. 

Before they started home Bill succeeded in purchas- 
ing, after much talk, a pair of moccasins that Hazel 
conceded to be a work of art, what with the dainty pat- 
tern of beads and the ornamentation of colored porcu- 


136 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

pine quills. Her feminine soul could not cavil when 
Bill thrust them in the pocket of her coat, even if her 
mind was set against accepting any peace tokens at his 
hands. 

And so in the nearing sunset they went home through 
the frost-bitten woods, where the snow crunched and 
squeaked under their feet, and the branches broke olF 
with a pistol-like snap when they were bent aside. 

A hundred yards from the cabin Bill challenged her 
to a race. She refused to run, and he picked her up 
bodily, and ran with her to the very door. He held 
her a second before he set her down, and Hazel’s face 
whitened. She could feel his breath on her cheek, and 
she could feel his arms quiver, and the rapid beat of 
his heart. For an instant she thought Roaring Bill 
WagstafF was about to make the colossal mistake of 
trying to kiss her. 

But he set her gently on her feet and opened the door. 
And by the time he had his heavy outer clothes off and 
the fires started up he was talking whimsically about 
their Indian neighbors, and Hazel breathed more freely. 
The clearest impression that she had, aside from her 
brief panic, was of his strength. He had run with her 
as easily as if she had been a child. 

After that they went out many times together. Bill 
took her hunting, initiated her into the mysteries of 
rifle shooting, and the manipulation of a six-shooter. 
He taught her to walk on snowshoes, lightly over the 
surface of the crusted snow, through which otherwise 
she floundered. A sort of truce arose between them, 
and the days drifted by without untoward incident. 


WINTER — AND A TRUCE 


137 


Bill tended to his horses, chopped wood, carried water. 
She took upon herself the care of the house. And 
through the long evenings, in default of conversation, 
they would sit with a book on either side of the fireplace 
that roared defiance to the storm gods without. 

And sometimes Hazel would find herself wondering 
why Roaring Bill WagstafF could not have come into her 
life in a different manner. As it was — she never, 
Tiever would forgive him. 


1 


CHAPTER XII 

THE FIRES OF SPRING 

There came a day when the metallic brilliancy went 
out of the sky, and it became softly, mistjjy blue. All 
that forenoon Hazel prowled restlessly out of doors 
without cap or coat. There was a new feel in the air. 
The deep winter snow had suddenly lost its harshness. 
A tentative stillness wrapped the North as if the land 
rested a moment, gathering its force for some titanic 
effort. 

Toward evening a mild breeze freshened from the 
southwest. The tender blue of the sky faded at sun- 
down to a slaty gray. Long wraiths of cloud floated 
up with the rising wind. At ten o’clock a gale whooped 
riotously through the trees. And at midnight Hazel 
wakened to a sound that she had not heard in months. 
She rose and groped her way to the window. The en- 
crusting frost had vanished from the panes. They 
were wet to the touch of her Angers. She unhooked 
the fastening, and swung the window out. A great gust 
of damp, warm wind blew strands of hair across her 
face. She leaned through the casement, and drops of 
cold water struck her bare neck. That which she had 
heard was the dripping eaves. The chinook wind 
droned its spring song, and the bare boughs of the tree 
beside the cabin waved and creaked the time. Some- 


THE FIRES OF SPRING 


139 


where distantly a wolf lifted up his voice, and the long, 
throaty howl swelled in a lull of the wind. It was black 
and ghostly outside, and strange, murmuring sounds 
rose and fell in the surrounding forests, as though all 
the dormant life of the North was awakening at the sea- 
sonal change. She closed the window and went back 
to bed. 

At dawn the eaves had ceased their drip, and the dirt 
roof laid bare to the cloud-banked sky. From the 
southwest the wind still blew strong and warm. The 
thick winter garment of the earth softened to slush, 
and vanished with amazing swiftness. Streams of wa- 
ter poured down every depression. Pools stood between 
the house and stable. Spring had leaped strong-armed 
upon old Winter and vanquished him at the first on- 
slaught. 

All that day the chinook blew, working its magic 
upon the land. When day broke again with a clear- 
ing sky, and the sun peered between the cloud rifts, 
his beams fell upon vast areas of brown and green, 
where but forty-eight hours gone there was the cold 
revelry of frost sprites upon far-flung fields of snow. 
Patches of earth steamed wherever a hillside lay bare 
to the sun. From some mysterious distance a lone 
crow winged his way, and, perching on a near-by tree- 
top, cawed raucous greeting. 

Hazel cleared away the breakfast things, and stood 
looking out the kitchen window. Roaring Bill sat on 
a log, shirt-sleeved, smoking his pipe. Presently he 
went over to the stable, led out his horses, and gave 
them their liberty. For twenty minutes or so he stood 


140 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


watching their mad capers as they ran and leaped and 
pranced back and forth over the clearing. Then he 
walked off into the timber, his rifle over one shoulder. 

Hazel washed her dishes and went outside. The cabin 
sat on a benchlike formation, a shoulder of the moun- 
tain behind, and she could look away westward across 
miles and miles of timber, darkly green and merging 
into purple in the distance. It was a beautiful land 
— and lonely. She did not know why, but all at once 
a terrible feeling of utter forlornness seized her. It 
was spring — and also it was spring in other lands. 
The wilderness suddenly took on the characteristics of 
a prison, in which she was sentenced to solitary confine- 
ment. She rebelled against it, rebelled against her 
surroundings, against the manner of her being there, 
against everything. She hated the North, she wished 
to be gone from it, and most of all she hated Bill Wag- 
staff for constraining her presence there. In six 
months she had not seen a white face, nor spoken to a 
woman of her own blood. Out beyond that sea of for- 
est lay the big, active world in which she belonged, of 
which she was a part, and she felt that she must get 
somewhere, do something, or go mad. 

All the heaviness of heart, all the resentment she had 
felt in the first few days when she followed him per- 
force away from Cariboo Meadows, came back to her 
with redoubled force that forenoon. She went back into 
the house, now gloomy without a Are, slumped for- 
lornly into a chair, and cried herself into a condition 
approaching hysteria. And she was sitting there, her 
head bowed on her hands, when Bill returned from his 


THE FIRES OF SPRING 


141 

hunting. The sun sent a shaft through the south win- 
dow, a shaft which rested on her drooping head. Roar- 
ing Bill walked softly up behind her and put his hand 
on her shoulder. 

“ What is it, little person ” he asked gently. 

She refused to answer. 

“ Say,” he bent a little lower, “ you know what the 
Tentmaker said: 

“ ‘ Come fill the cup, and in the fire of Spring 
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling; 

The Bird of Time has but a little way 
To flutter — and the Bird is on the Wing.’ 

“ Life’s too short to waste any of it in being use- 
lessly miserable. Come on out and go for a ride on 
Silk. I’ll take you up on a mountainside, and show 
you a waterfall that leaps three hundred feet in the 
clear. The woods are waking up and putting on their 
Easter bonnets. There’s beauty everywhere. Come 
along ! ” 

She wrenched herself away from him. 

“ I want to go home ! ” she wailed. “ I hate you and 
the North, and everything in it. If you’ve got a spark 
of manhood left in you, you’ll take me out of here.” 

Roaring Bill backed away from her. “ Do you mean 
that.^^ Honest Injun.?” he asked incredulously. 

“I do — I do ! ” she cried vehemently. “ Haven’t 
I told you often enough.? I didn’t come here willingly, 
and I won’t stay. I will not! I have a right to live 
my life in my own way, and it’s not this way.” 

“ So,” Roaring Bill began evenly, “ springtime with 


142 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


you only means getting back to work. You want to 
get back into the muddled rush of peopled places, do 
you? For what? To teach a class in school, or to 
be some business shark’s slave of the typewriter at ten 
dollars a week? You want to be where you can as- 
sociate with flufFy-ruffle, pompadoured girls, and be 
properly introduced to equally proper young men. 
Lord, but I seem to have made a mistake ! And, by the 
same token. I’ll probably pay for it — in a way you 
wouldn’t understand if you lived a thousand years. 
Well, set your mind at rest. I’ll take you out. I’ll 
take you back to your stamping-ground if that’s what 
you crave. Ye gods and little fishes, but I have sure 
been a fool ! ” 

He sat down on the edge of the table, and Hazel 
blinked at him, half scared, and full of wonder. She 
had grown so used to seeing him calm, imperturbable, 
smiling cheerfully no matter what she said or did, that 
his passionate outbreak amazed her. She could only 
sit and look at him. 

He got out his cigarette materials. But his fingers 
trembled, spilling the tobacco. And when he tore the 
paper in his efforts to roll it, he dashed paper and all 
into the fireplace with something that sounded like an 
oath, and walked out of the house. Nor did he re- 
turn till the sun was well down toward the tree-rimmed 
horizon. When he came back he brought in an armful 
of wood and kindling, and began to build a fire. Hazel 
came out of her room. Bill greeted her serenely. 

“ Well, little person,” he said, “ I hope you’ll perk 
up now.” 


THE FIRES OF SPRING 


143 

“ I’ll try,” she returned. “ Are you really going to 
take me out.? ” 

Bill paused with a match blazing in his fingers. 

“ I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean,’' 
he answered dryly. “ We’ll start in the morning.” 

The dark closed in on them, and they cooked and ate 
supper in silence. Bill remained thoughtful and ab- 
stracted. He slouched for a time in his chair by the 
fire. Then from some place among his books he un- 
earthed a map, and, spreading it on the table, studied 
it a while. After that he dragged in his kyaks from 
outside, and busied himself packing them with supplies 
for a journey — tea and coffee and flour and such 
things done up in small canvas sacks. 

And when these preparations were complete he got 
a sheet of paper and a pencil, and fell to copying some- 
thing from the map. He was still at that, sketching 
and marking, when Hazel went to bed. 

By all the signs and tokens. Roaring Bill Wagstaff 
slept none that night. Hazel herself tossed wakefully, 
and during her wakeful moments she could hear him 
stir in the outer room. And a full hour before day- 
light he called her to breakfast. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE OUT TRAIL, 

“ This time last spring,” Bill said to her, ‘‘ I was 
piking away north of those mountains, bound for the 
head of the Naas to prospect for gold.” 

They were camped in a notch on the tiptop of a long 
divide, a thousand feet above the general level. A wide 
valley rolled below, and from the height' they overlooked 
two great, sinuous lakes and a multitude of smaller 
ones. The mountain range to which Bill pointed loomed 
seventy miles distance, angling northwest. The sun 
glinted on the snow-capped peaks, though they them- 
selves were in the shadow. 

“ I’ve been wondering,” Hazel said. “ This country 
somehow seems different. You’re not going back to 
Cariboo Meadows, are you.? ” 

Bill bestowed a look of surprise on her. 

“I should say notl” he drawled. “Not that it 
would make any difference to me. But I’m very sure 
you don’t want to turn up there in my company.” 

“ That’s true,” she observed. “ But all the clothes 
and all the money I have in the world are there.” 

“ Don’t let money worry you,” he said briefly. “ I 
have got plenty to see you through. And you can 
easily buy clothes.” 


THE OUT TRAIL 


145 


They were now ten days on the road. Their course 
had lain across low, rolling country, bordered by rug- 
ged hills, spotted with lakes, and cut here and there by 
streams that put Bill WagstalF to many strange shifts 
in crossing. But upon leaving this camp they crossed 
a short stretch of low country, and then struck 
straight into the heart of a mountainous region. 
Steadily they climbed, reaching up through gloomy 
canons where foaming cataracts spilled themselves over 
sheer walls of granite, where the dim and narrow pack 
trail was crossed and recrossed with the footprints of 
bear and deer and the snowy-coated mountain goat. 
The spring weather held its own, and everywhere was 
the pleasant smell of growing things. Overhead the 
wild duck winged his way in aerial squadrons to the 
vast solitudes of the North. 

Roaring Bill lighted his evening fire at last at the 
apex of the pass. He had traveled long after sun- 
down, seeking a camp ground where his horses could 
graze. The fire lit up huge firs, and high above the 
fir tops the sky was studded with stars, brilliant in the 
thin atmosphere. They ate, and, being weary, lay 
down to sleep. At sunrise Hazel sat up and looked 
about her in silent, wondering appreciation. All the 
world spread east and west below. Bill squatted by the 
fire, piling on wood, and he caught the expression on 
her face. 

“ Isn’t it great .? ” he said. “ I ran across some 
verses in a magazine a long time ago. They just fit 
this, and they’ve been running in my head ever since I 
woke up: 


146 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

“ ‘ All night long my heart has cried 
For the starry moors 
And the mountain’s ragged flank 
And the plunge of oars. 

‘ Oh, to feel the Wind grow strong’ 

Where the Trail leaps down. 

1 could never learn the way 
And wisdom of the town. 

‘Where the hill heads split the Tide 
Of green and living air 
I would press Adventure hard 
To her deepest lair.’ 

“ The last verse is the best of all,” he said thought- 
fully. “ It has been my litany ever since I first read 
it : 

“ ‘ I would let the world’s rebuke 
Like a wind go by. 

With my naked soul laid bare 
To the naked Sky.’ 

“ And here you are,” he murmured, “ hotfooting it 
back to where the world’s rebuke is always in evidence, 
always ready to sting you like a hot iron if you should 
chance to transgress one of its petty-larceny dictums. 
Well, you’ll soon be there. Can you see a glint of 
blue away down there No.^ Take the glasses.” 

She adjusted the binoculars and peered westward 
from the great height where the camp sat. Distantly, 
and far below, the green of the forest broke down to a 
hazy line of steel-blue that ran in turn to a huge fog 
bank, snow-white in the rising sun. 

“Yes, I can see it now,” she said. “A lake?” 


THE OUT TRAIL 


147 


“ No. Salt water — a long arm of the Pacific,” he 
replied. “ That’s where you and I part company — 
to your very great relief, I dare say. But look off in 
the other direction. Lord, you can see two hundred 
miles ! If it weren’t for the Babine Range sticking up 
you could look clear to where my cabin stands. What 
an outlook! Tens of thousands of square miles of 
timber and lakes and rivers ! Sunny little valleys ; fish 
and game everywhere; soil that will grow anything. 
And scarcely a soul in it all, barring here and there a 
fur post or a stray prospector. Yet human beings 
by the million herd in filthy tenements, and never see 
a blade of green grass the year around. 

“ I told you, I think, about prospecting on the head 
of the Naas last spring. I fell in with another fellow 
up there, and we worked together, and early in the sea- 
son made a nice little clean-up on a gravel bar. I have 
another place spotted, by the way, that would work 
out a fortune if a fellow wanted to spend a couple of 
thousand putting in some simple machinery. However, 
when the June rise drove us off our bar, I pulled clear 
out of the country. Just took a notion to see the 
bright lights again. And I didn’t stop short of New 
York. Do you know, I lasted there just one week by 
the calendar. It seems funny, when you think of it, 
that a man with three thousand dollars to spend should 
get lonesome in a place like New York. But I did. 
And at the end of a week I flew. The sole memento 
of that trip was a couple of Russell prints — and a 
very bad taste in my mouth. I had all that money 
burning my pockets — and, all told, I didn’t spend five 


148 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


hundred. Fancy a man jumping over four thousand 
miles to have a good time, and then running away from 
it. It was very foolish of me, I think now. If I had 
stuck and got acquainted with somebody, and taken in 
all the good music, the theaters, and the giddy cafes I 
wouldn’t have got home and blundered into Cariboo 
Meadows at the psychological moment to make a differ- 
ent kind of fool of myself. Well, the longer we live 
the more we learn. Day after to-morrow you’ll be in 
Bella Coola. The cannery steamships carry passengers 
on a fairly regular schedule to Vancouver. How does 
that suit you? ” 

“ Very well,” she answered shortly. 

“ And you haven’t the least twinge of regret at 
leaving all this ? ” He waved his hand in a compre- 
hensive sweep. 

“ I don’t happen to have your peculiar point of 
view,” she returned. “ The circumstances connected 
with my coming into this country and with my staying 
here are such as to make me anxious to get away.” 

“ Same old story,” Bill muttered under his breath. 

“ What is it ? ” she asked sharply. 

‘‘ Oh, nothing,” he said carelessly, and went on with 
his breakfast preparations. . 

They finished the meal. Bill got his horses up be- i 
side the fire, loading on the packs. Hazel sat on the ] 
trunk of a winter-broken fir, waiting his readiness to | 
start. She heard no sound behind her. But she did j 
see Roaring Bill stiffen and his face blanch under its j 
tan. Twenty feet away his rifle leaned against a tree ; | 
his belt and six-shooter hung on a limb above it. He ( 


THE OUT TRAIL 


149 


was tucking a keen-edged hatchet under the pack lash- 
ing. And, swinging this up, he jumped — it seemed — 
straight at her. But his eyes were fixed on something 
beyond. 

Before she could move, or even turn to look, so sud- 
den was his movement. Bill was beside her. The sound 
of a crunching blow reached her ears. In the same in- 
stant a heavy body collided with her, knocking her flat. 
A great weight, a weight which exhaled a rank animal 
odor, rolled over her. Her clutching hands briefly 
encountered some hairy object. Then she was slammed 
against the fallen tree with a force that momentarily 
stunned her. 

When she opened her eyes again Roaring Bill had 
her head in his lap, peering anxiously down. She 
caught a glimpse of the unsteady hand that held a cup 
of water, and she struggled to a sitting posture with a 
shudder. Bill’s shirt was ripped from the neckband to 
the wrist, baring his sinewy arm. And hand, arm, and 
shoulder were spattered with fresh blood. His face was 
spotted where he had smeared it with his bloody hand. 
Close by, so close that she could almost reach it, lay the 
grayish-black carcass of a bear. Bill’s hatchet buried in 
the skull, as a woodsman leaves his ax blade stuck in 
a log. 

“ Feel all right ? ” Bill asked. His voice was husky. 

“ Yes, yes,” she assured him. “ Except for a sort 
of sickening feeling. Are you hurt? ” 

He shook his head. 

“ I thought you were broken in two,” he muttered. 
‘‘We both fell right on top of you. Ugh ! ” 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


150 

He sat down on the tree and rested his head on his 
bloodstained hands, and Hazel saw that he was quiver- 
ing from head to foot. She got up and went over to 
him. 

“Are you sure you aren’t hurt?” she asked again. 

He looked up at her ; big sweat drops were gathering 
on his face. 

“Hurt? No,” he murmured; “I’m just plain 
scared. You looked as if you were dead, lying there so 
white and still.” 

He reached out one long arm and drew her up close 
to him. 

“ Little person,” he whispered, “ if you just cared 
one little bit as much as I do, it would be all right. 
Look at me. Just the thought of what might have hap- 
pened to you has set every nerve in my body jumping. 
I’m Samson shorn. Why can’t you care? I’d be 
gooder than gold to 

She drew herself away from him without answering 
— not in fear, but because her code of ethics, the re- 
pressive conventions of her whole existence urged her to 
do so in the face of a sudden yearning to draw his 
bloody face up close to her and kiss it. The very 
thought, the swift surge of the impulse frightened her, 
shocked her. She could not understand it, and so she 
took refuge behind the woman instinct to hold back, 
that strange feminine paradox which will deny and 
shrink from the dominant impulses of life. And Roar- 
ing Bill made no effort to hold her. He let her go, 
and fumbled for a handkerchief to wipe his glistening 
face. And presently he went over to where a little 



“ Hurt? No/’ 


he murmured; “ I’m just plain scared.” 
Page 150. 






THE OUT TRAIL 


151 

stream bubbled among the tree roots and washed his 
hands and face. Then he got a clean shirt out of his 
war bag and disappeared into the brush to change. 
When he came out he was himself again, if a bit sober 
in expression. 

He finished his packing without further words. Not 
till the pack horses were ready, and Silk saddled for 
her, did he speak again. Then he cast a glance at the 
dead bear. 

“By Jove!” he remarked. “I’m about to forget 
my tomahawk.” 

He poked tentatively at the furry carcass with his 
toe. Hazel came up and took a curious survey of fallen 
Bruin. Bill laid hold of the hatchet and wrenched it 
loose. 

“ I’ve hunted more or less all my life,” he observed, 
“ and I’ve seen bear under many different conditions. 
But this is the first time I ever saw a bear tackle any- 
body without cause or warning. I guess this beggar 
was strictly on the warpath, looking for trouble on 
general principles.” 

“Was he after me.?” Hazel asked. 

“ Well, I don’t know whether he had a grudge against 
you,” Bill smiled. “ But he was sure coming with his 
mouth open and his arms spread wide. You notice I 
didn’t take time to go after my rifle, and I’m not a 
foolhardy person as a rule. I don’t tackle a grizzly 
with a hatchet unless I’m cornered, believe me. It was 
lucky he wasn’t overly big. At that, I can feel my hair 
stand up when I think how he would have mussed us up 
if I’d missed that first swing at his head. You’ll never 


152 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


have a closer call. And the same thing might not 
happen again if you lived in a bear country for thirty 
years. 

“ It’s a pity to let that good skin rot here,” Bill con- 
cluded slowly ; ‘‘ but I guess I will. I don’t want his 
pelt. It would always be a reminder of things — things 
I’d just as soon forget.” 

He tucked the hatchet in its place on the pack. 
Hazel swung up on Silk. They tipped over the crest 
of the mountain, and began the long descent. 

The evening of the third day from there Bill traveled 
till dusk. When camp was made and the fire started, 
he called Hazel to one side, up on a little rocky knoll, 
and pointed out a half dozen pin points of yellow glim- 
mering distantly in the dark. 

“ That’s Bella Coola,” he told her. “ And unless 
they’ve made a radical change in their sailing schedules 
there should be a boat clear to-morrow at noon.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE DRONE OF THE HIVE 

A black cloud of smoke was rolling up from the fun- 
nel of the Stanley D, as Bill WagstafF piloted Hazel 
from the grimy Bella Coola hotel to the wharf. 

“ There aren’t many passengers,” he told her. 
“ They’re mostly cannery men. But you’ll have the 
captain’s wife to chaperon you. She happens to be 
making the trip.” 

When they were aboard and the cabin boy had shown 
them to what was dignified by the name of stateroom, 
Bill drew a long envelope from his pocket. 

“ Here,” he said, “ is a little money. I hope you 
won’t let any foolish pride stand in the way of using it 
freely. It came easy to me. I dug it out of Mother 
Earth, and there’s plenty more where it came from. 
Seeing that I deprived you of access to your own money 
and all your personal belongings, you are entitled to 
this any way you look at it. And I want to throw in 
a bit of gratuitous advice — in case you should con- 
clude to go back to the Meadows. They probably 
looked high and low for you. But there is no chance 
for them to learn where you actually did get to unless 
you yourself tell them. The most plausible explana- 
tion — and if you go there you must make some ex- 
planation — would be for you to say that you got lost 


154 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


— which is true enough — and that you eventually fell 
in with a party of Indians, and later on connected up 
with a party of white people who were traveling coast- 
ward. That you wintered with them, and they put 
you on a steamer and sent you to Vancouver when 
spring opened. 

“ That, I guess, is all,” he concluded slowly. “ Only 
I wish ” — he caught her by the shoulders and shook 
her gently — “ I sure do wish it could have been differ- 
ent, little person. Maybe you’ll have a kindlier feeling 
for this big old North when you get back into your 
cities and towns, with their smoke and smells and busi- 
ness sharks, where it’s everybody for himself and the 
devil take the hindmost. Maybe some time when I get 
restless for human companionship and come out to 
cavort in the bright lights for a while, I may pass you 
on a street somewhere. This world is very small. Oh, 
yes — when you get to Vancouver go to the Ladysmith. 
It’s a nice, quiet hotel in the West End. Any hack 
driver knows the place.” 

He dropped his hands, and looked steadily at her for 
a few seconds, steadily and longingly. 

“ Good-by ! ” he said abruptly — and walked out, 
and down the gangplank that was already being cast 
loose, and away up the wharf without a backward 
glance. 

The Stanley D.'s siren woke the echoes along the 
wooded shore. A throbbing that shook her from stem 
to stern betokened the first turnings of the screw. And 
slowly she backed into deep water and swung wide for 
the outer passage. 


THE DRONE OF THE HIVE 155 


Hazel went out to the rail. Bill WagstafF had dis- 
appeared, but presently she caught sight of him stand- 
ing on the shore end of the wharf, his hands thrust 
deep in his coat pockets, staring after the steamer. 
Hazel waved the envelope that she still held in her hand. 
Now that she was independent of him, she felt magnan- 
imous, forgiving — and suddenly very much -alone, as 
if she had dropped back into the old, depressing Gran- 
ville atmosphere. But he gave no answering sign save 
that he turned on the instant and went up the hill to 
where his horses stood tied among the huddled build- 
ings. And within twenty minutes the Stanley Z>. turned 
a jutting point, and Bella Coola was lost to view. 

Hazel went back into her stateroom and sat down on 
the berth. Presently she opened the envelope. There 
was a thick fold of bills, her ticket, and both were 
wrapped in a sheet of paper penciled with dots and 
crooked lines. She laid it aside and counted the money. 

“ Heavens ! ” she whispered. “ I wish he hadn’t 
given me so much. I didn’t need all that.” 

For Roaring Bill had tucked a dozen one-hundred- 
dollar notes in the envelope. And, curiously enough, 
she was not offended, only wishful that he had been 
less generous. Twelve hundred dollars was a lot of 
money, far more than she needed, and she did not know 
how she could return it. She sat a long time with the 
money in her lap, thinking. Then she took up the map, 
recognizing it as the sheet of paper Bill had worked 
over so long their last night at the cabin. 

It made the North more clear — a great deal more 
clear — to her, for he had marked Cariboo Meadows, 


156 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

the location of his cabin, and Bella Coola, and drawn 
dotted lines to indicate the way he had taken her in and 
brought her out. The Fraser and its tributaries, some 
of the crossings that she remembered were sketched in, 
the mountains and the lakes by which his trail had 
wound. 

“ I wonder if that’s a challenge to my vindictive dis- 
position ? ” she murmured. “ I told him so often that 
I’d make him sweat for his treachery if ever I got a 
chance. Ah well — ” 

She put away the money and the map, and bestowed 
a brief scrutiny upon herself in the cabin mirror. Six 
months in the wild had given her a ruddy color, the glow 
of perfect physical condition. But her garments were 
tattered and sadly out of date. The wardrobe of the 
steamer-trunk lady had suffered in the winter’s wear. 
She was barely presentable in the outing suit of cordu- 
roy. So that she was inclined to be diffident about her 
appearance, and after a time when she was not think- 
ing of the strange episodes of the immediate past, her 
mind, womanlike, began to dwell on civilization and 
decent clothes. 

The Stanley D, bore down Bentick Arm and on 
through Burke Channel to the troubled waters of Queen 
Charlotte Sound, where the blue Pacific opens out and 
away to far Oriental shores. After that she plowed 
south between Vancouver Island and the rugged fore- 
shores where the Coast Range dips to the sea, past 
pleasant isles, and through narrow passes where the 
cliffs towered sheer on either hand, and, upon the even- 
ing of the third day, she turned into Burrard Inlet and 


THE DRONE OF THE HIVE 


157 

swept across a harbor speckled with shipping from all 
the Seven Seas to her berth at the dock. 

So Hazel came again to a city — a city that roared 
and bellowed all its manifold noises in her ears, long 
grown accustomed to a vast and brooding silence. 
Mindful of Bill’s parting word, she took a hack to the 
Ladysmith. And even though the hotel was removed 
from the business heart of the city, the rumble of the 
city’s herculean labors reached her far into the night. 
She lay wakefully, staring through her open window 
at the arc lights winking in parallel rows, listening to 
the ceaseless hum of man’s activities. But at last she 
fell asleep, and dawn of a clear spring day awakened 
her. 

She ate her breakfast, and set forth on a shopping 
tour. To such advantage did she put two of the 
hundred-dollar bills that by noon she was arrayed in 
a semi-tailored suit of gray, spring hat, shoes, and 
gloves to match. She felt once more at ease, less con-* 
scious that people stared at her frayed and curious 
habiliments. With a complete outfit of lingerie pur- 
chased, and a trunk in which to store it forwarded to 
her hotel, her immediate activity was at an end, and she 
had time to think of her next move. 

And, brought face to face with that, she found her- 
self at something of a loss. She had no desire to go 
back to Cariboo Meadows, even to get what few per- 
sonal treasures she had left behind. Cariboo Meadows 
was wiped off the slate as far as she was concerned. 
Nevertheless, she must make her way. Somehow she 
must find a means to return the unused portion of the 


158 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

— to her — enormous sum Roaring Bill had placed in 
her hands. She must make her own living. The ques- 
tion that troubled her was: How, and where.? She 
had her trade at her finger ends, and the storied office 
buildings of Vancouver assured her that any efficient 
stenographer could find work. But she looked up as 
she walked the streets at the high, ugly walls of brick 
and steel and stone, and her heart misgave her. 

So for the time being she promised herself a holiday. 
In the afternoon she walked the length of Hastings 
Street, where the earth trembled with the roaring traf- 
fic of street cars, wagons, motors, and where folk 
scuttled back and forth across the way in peril of their 
lives. She had seen all the like before, but now she 
looked upon it with different eyes ; it possessed some- 
how a different significance, this bustle and confusion 
which had seemingly neither beginning nor end, only 
sporadic periods of cessation. 

She sat in a candy parlor and watched people go 
by, swarming like bees along the walk. She remem- 
bered having heard or read somewhere the simile of a 
human hive. The shuffle of their feet, the hum of their 
voices droned in her ears, confusing her, irritating her, 
and she presently found herself hurrying away from 
it, walking rapidly eastward toward a thin fringe of 
trees which showed against a distant sky-line over a sea 
of roofs. She walked fast, and before long the jar of 
solid heels on the concrete pavement bred an ache in her 
knees. Then she caught a car passing in that direc- 
tion, and rode to the end of the line, where the rails 
ran out in a wilderness of stumps. 


THE DRONE OF THE HIVE 


159 


Crossing through these, she found a rudely graded 
highway, which in turn dwindled to a mere path. It 
led her through a pleasant area of second-growth fir, 
slender offspring of the slaughtered forest monarchs, 
whose great stumps dotted the roll of the land, and up 
on a little rise whence she could overlook the city and 
the inlet where rode the tall-masted ships and sea- 
scarred tramps from deep salt water. And for the time 
being she was content. 

But a spirit of restlessness drove her back into the 
city. And at nightfall she went up to her room and 
threw herself wearily on the bed. She was tired, body 
and spirit, and lonely. Nor was this lightened by the 
surety that she would be lonelier still before she found 
a niche to fit herself in and gather the threads of her 
life once more into some orderly pattern. 

In the morning she felt better, even to the point of 
going over the newspapers and jotting down several 
advertisements calling for office help. Her brief ex- 
perience in Cariboo Meadows had not led her to look 
kindly on teaching as a means of livelihood. And 
stenographers seemed to be in demand. Wherefore, 
she reasoned that wages would be high. With the list 
in her purse, she went down on Hastings — which runs 
like a huge artery through the heart of the city, with 
lesser streets crossing and diverging. 

But she made no application for employment. For 
on the corner of Hastings and Seymour, as she gath- 
ered her skirt in her hand to cross the street, some one 
caught her by the arm, and cried : 

“Well, iorevermore, if it isn’t Hazel Weir!” 


i6o NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

And she turned to find herself facing Loraine Marsh 
— a Granville school chum — and Loraine’s mother. 
Back of them, with wide and startled eyes, loomed Jack 
Barrow. 

He pressed forward while the two women overwhelmed 
Hazel with a flood of exclamations and questions, and 
extended his hand. Hazel accepted the overture. She 
had long since gotten over her resentment against him. 
She was furthermore amazed to find that she could meet 
his eye and take his hand without a single flutter of her 
pulse. It seemed strange, but she was glad of it. And, 
indeed, she was too much taken up with Loraine Marsh’s 
chatter, and too genuinely glad to hear a friendly voice 
again, to dwell much on ghosts of the past. 

They stood a few minutes on the corner; then Mrs. 
Marsh proposed that they go to the hotel, where they 
could talk at their leisure and in comfort. Loraine and 
her mother took the lead. Barrow naturally fell into 
step with Hazel. 

“ I’ve been wearing sackcloth and ashes. Hazel,” he 
said humbly. And I guess you’ve got about a mil- 
lion apologies coming from everybody in Granville for 
the shabby way they treated you. Shortly after you : 
left, somebody on one of the papers ferreted out the 
truth of that Bush affair, and the vindictive old hound’s 
reasons for that compromising legacy were set forth. 
It seems this newspaper fellow connected up with Bush’s 
secretary and the nurse. Also, Bush appears to have 
kept a diary — and kept it posted up to the day of his 
death — poured out all his feelings on paper, and re- 
peatedly asserted that he would win you or ruin you.' 


THE DRONE OF THE HIVE i6i 

And it seems that that night after you refused to come 
to him when he was hurt, he called in his lawyer and 
made that codicil — and spent the rest of the time till 
he died gloating over the chances of it besmirching your 
character.” 

“ I’ve grown rather indifferent about it,” Hazel re- 
plied impersonally. “ But he succeeded rather easily. 
Even you, who should have known me better, were ready 
to believe the very worst.” 

“ I’ve paid for it,” Barrow pleaded. “ You don’t 
know how I’ve hated myself for being such a cad. But 
it taught me a lesson — if you’ll not hold a grudge 
against me. I’ve wondered and worried about you, 
disappearing the way you did. Where have you been, 
and how have you been getting on.^^ You surely look 
well.” He bent an admiring glance on her. 

“ Oh, I’ve been every place, and I can’t complain 
about not getting on,” she answered carelessly. 

For the life of her, she could not help making com- 
parisons between the man beside her and another who 
she guessed would by now be bearing up to the crest 
of the divide that overlooked the green and peaceful 
vista of forest and lake, with the Babine Range lying 
purple beyond. She wondered if Roaring Bill Wag- 
staff would ever, under any circumstances, have looked 
on her with the scornful, angry distrust that Barrow 
had once betrayed. And she could not conceive of 
Bill Wagstaff ever being humble or penitent for any- 
thing he had done. Barrow’s attitude was that of a 
little boy who had broken some plaything in a fit of anger 
and was now woefully trying to put the pieces together 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


162 

again. It amused her. Indeed, it afforded her a dis- 
tinctly un-Christian satisfaction, since she was not by 
nature of a meek or forgiving spirit. He had made her 
suffer ; it was but fitting that he should know a pang or 
two himself. 

Hazel visited with the three of them in the hotel 
parlor for a matter of two hours, went to luncheon 
with them, and at luncheon Loraine Marsh brought up 
the subject of her coming home to Granville with them. 
The Bush incident was discussed and dismissed. On the 
question of returning. Hazel was noncommittal. The 
idea appealed strongly to her. Granville was home. 
She had grown up there. There were a multitude of 
old ties, associations, friends to draw her back. But 
whether her home town would seem the same, whether she 
would feel the same toward the friends who had held 
aloof in the time when she needed a friend the most, 
even if they came flocking back to her, was a question 
that she thought of if she did not put it in so many 
words. On the other hand, she knew too well the drear 
loneliness that would close upon her in Vancouver when 
the Marshes left. 

‘‘ Of course you’ll come ! We won’t hear of leaving 
you behind. So you can consider that settled.” Lo- 
raine Marsh declared at last. “ We’re going day after 
to-morrow. So is Mr. Barrow.” 

Jack walked with her out to the Ladysmith, and, 
among other things, told her how he happened to be in 
the coast city. 

“ I’ve been doing pretty well lately,” he said. ‘‘ I 
came out here on a deal that involved about fifty thou- 


THE DRONE OF THE HIVE 163 


sand dollars. I closed it up just this morning — and 
the commission would just about buy us that little house 
we had planned once. Won’t you let bygones be by- 
gones, Hazie? ” 

“ It might be possible, Jack,” she answered slowly, 
“ if it were not for the fact that you took the most 
effective means a man could have taken to kill every 
atom of affection I had for you. I don’t feel bitter 
any more — I simply don’t feel at all.” 

‘‘ But you will,” he said eagerly. “ Just give me a 
chance. I was a hot-headed, jealous fool, but I never 
will be again. Give me a chance. Hazel.” 

“ You’ll have to make your own chances,” she said 
deliberately. “ I refuse to bind myself in any way. 
Why should I put myself out to make you happy when 
you destroyed all the faith I had in you? You simply 
didn’t trust me. You wouldn’t trust me again. If 
slander could turn you against me once it might a 
second time. Besides, I don’t care for you as a man 
wants a woman to care for him. And I don’t think 
I’m going to care — except, perhaps, in a friendly 
way.” 

And with that Barrow had to be content. 

He called for her the next day, and took her, with 
the Marshes, out for a launch ride, and otherwise de- 
voted himself to being an agreeable cavalier. On the 
launch excursion it was settled definitely that Hazel 
should accompany them East. She had no prepara- 
tions to make. The only thing she would like to have 
done — return Roaring Bill’s surplus money — she 
could not do. She did not know how or where to reach 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


164 

him with a letter. So far as Granville was concerned, 
she could always leave it if she desired, and she was a 
trifle curious to know how all her friends would greet 
her now that the Bush mystery was cleared up and 
the legacy explained. 

So that at dusk of the following day she and Loraine 
Marsh sat in a Pullman, flattening their noses against 
the car window, taking a last look at the environs of 
Vancouver as the train rolled through the outskirts 
of the city. Hazel told herself that she was going home. 
Barrow smiled friendly assurance over the seat. 

Even so, she was restless, far from content. There 
was something lacking. She grew distrait, monosyl- 
labic, sat for long intervals staring absently into the 
gloom beyond the windowpane. The Limited was rip- 
ping through forested land. She could see now and 
then tall treetops limned against the starlit sky. The 
ceaseless roar of the trucks and the buzz of conversa- 
tion in the car irritated her. At half after eight she 
called the porter and had him arrange her section for 
the night. And she got into bed, thankful to be by her- 
self, depressed without reason. 

She slept for a time, her sleep broken into by morbid 
dreams, and eventually she wakened to find her eyes 
full of tears. She did not know why she should cry, 
but cry she did till her pillow grew moist — and the 
heavy feeling in her breast grew, if anything, more in- 
tense. 

She raised on one elbow and looked out the window. 
The train slowed with a squealing of brakes and the 
hiss of escaping air to a station. On the signboard 


THE DRONE OF THE HIVE 165 


over the office window she read the name of the place 
and the notation : “ Vancouver, 180 miles.” 

Her eyes were still wet. When the Limited drove 
east again she switched on the tiny electric bulb over 
her head, and fumbled in her purse for another hand- 
kerchief. Her fingers drew forth, with the bit of linen, 
a folded sheet of paper, which seemed to hypnotize her, 
so fixedly did she remain looking at it. A sheet of plain 
white paper, marked with dots and names and crooked 
lines that stood for rivers, with shaded patches that 
meant mountain ranges she had seen — Bill WagstafF’s 
map. 

She stared at it a long time. Then she found her 
time-table, and ran along the interminable string of 
station names till she found Ashcroft, from whence 
northward ran the Appian Way of British Columbia, the 
Cariboo Road, over which she had journeyed by stage. 
She noted the distance, and the Limited’s hour of ar- 
rival, and looked at her watch. Then a feverish ac- 
tivity took hold of her. She dressed, got her suit case 
from under the berth, and stuffed articles into it, re- 
gardless of order. Her hat was in a paper bag sus- 
pended from a hook above the upper berth. Where- 
fore, she tied a silk scarf over her head. 

That done, she set her suit case in the aisle, and 
curled herself in the berth, with her face pressed close 
against the window. A whimsical smile played about 
her mouth, and her fingers tap-tapped steadily on the 
purse, wherein was folded Bill Wagstaff’s map. 

And then out of the dark ahead a cluster of lights 
winked briefly, the shriek of the Limited’s whistle 


i66 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


echoed up and down the wide reaches of the North 
Thompson, and the coaches came to a stop. Hazel took 
one look to make sure. Then she got softly into the 
aisle, took up her suit case, and left the car. At the 
steps she turned to give the car porter a message. 

‘‘ Tell Mrs. Marsh — the lady in lower five,” she 
said, with a dollar to quicken his faculties, “ that Miss 
Weir had to go back. Say that i will write soon and 
explain.” 

She stood back in the shadow of the station for a 
few seconds. The Limited’s stop was brief. When the 
red lights went drumming down the track, she took up 
her suit case and walked uptown to the hotel where she 
had tarried overnight once before. 

The clerk showed her to a room. She threw her 
suit case on the bed and turned the key in the lock. 
Then she went over, and, throwing up the window to 
its greatest height, sat down and looked steadily toward 
the north, smiling to herself. 

“ I can find him,” she suddenly said aloud. “ Of 
course I can find him ! ” 

And with that she blew a kiss from her finger-tips 
out toward the dark and silent North, pulled down the 
shade, and went quietly to bed. 


CHAPTER XV 


AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING 

Unconsciously, by natural assimilation, so to speak. 
Hazel Weir had absorbed more woodcraft than she 
realized in her over-winter stay in the high latitudes. 
Bill Wagstaff had once told her that few people know 
just what they can do until they are compelled to try, 
and upon this, her second journey northward, the truth 
of that statement grew more patent with each passing 
day. Little by little the vast central interior of British 
Columbia unfolded its orderly plan of watercourses, 
mountain ranges, and valleys. She passed camping 
places, well remembered of that first protesting journey. 
And at night she could close her eyes beside the camp 
fires and visualize the prodigious setting of it all — • 
eastward the pyramided Rockies, westward lesser 
ranges, the Telegraph, the Babine; and through the 
plateau between the turbulent Frazer, bearing eastward 
from the Rockies and turning abruptly for its long 
flow south, with its sinuous doublings and turnings that 
were marked in bold lines on Bill Wagstaff’s map. 

So trailing north with old Limping George, his fat 
Hootch, and two half-grown Siwash youths. Hazel bore 
steadily across country, driving as straight as the roll- 
ing land allowed for the cabin that snuggled in a woodsy 
basin close up to the peaks that guard Pine River Pass. 


i68 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


There came a day when brief uncertainty became 
sure knowledge at sight of an L-shaped body of water 
glimmering through the fire-thinned spruce. Her heart 
fluttered for a minute. Like a homing bird, by grace 
of the rude map and Limping George, she had come to 
the lake where the Indians had camped in the winter, 
and she could have gone blindfolded from the lake to 
Roaring Bill’s cabin. 

On the lake shore, where the spruce ran out to birch 
and cottonwood, she called a halt. 

‘‘ Make camp,” she instructed. “ Cabin over there,” 
she waved her hand. ‘‘ I go. Byemby come back.” 

Then she urged her pony through the light timber 
growth and across the little meadows where the rank 
grass and strange varicolored flowers were springing 
up under the urge of the warm spring sun. Twenty 
minutes brought her to the clearing. The grass sprang 
lush there, and the air was pleasant with odors of pine 
and balsam wafted down from the mountain height be- 
hind. But the breath of the woods was now a matter 
of small moment, for Silk and Satin and Nigger loafing 
at the sunny end of the stable pricked up their ears 
at her approach, and she knew that Roaring Bill was 
home again. She tied her horse to a sapling and drew 
nearer. The cabin door stood wide. 

A brief panic seized her. She felt a sudden shrink- 
ing, a wild desire for headlong flight. But it passed. 
She knew that for good or ill she would never turn 
back. And so, with her heart thumping tremendously 
and a tentative smile curving her lips, she ran lightly 
across to the open door. 


AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING 169 


On the soft turf her footsteps gave forth no sound. 
She gained the doorway as silently as a shadow. Roar- 
ing Bill faced the end of the long room, but he did not 
see her, for he was slumped in the big chair before the 
fireplace, his chin sunk on his breast, staring straight 
ahead with absent eyes. 

In all the days she had been with him she had never 
seen him look like that. It had been his habit, his de- 
fense, to cover sadness with a smile, to joke when he was 
hurt. That weary, hopeless expression, the wry twist 
of his lips, wrung her heart and drew from her a yearn- 
ing little whisper: 

“ Bill!” 

He came out of his chair like a panther. And when 
his eyes beheld her in the doorway he stiffened in his 
tracks, staring, seeing, yet reluctant to believe the evi- 
dence of his vision. His brows wrinkled. He put up 
one hand and absently ran it over his cheek. 

“ I wonder if I’ve got to the point of seeing things,” 
he said slowly. “ Say, little person, is it your astral 
body, or is it really you? ” 

“ Of course it’s me,” she cried tremulously, and with 
fine disregard for her habitual preciseness of speech. 

He came up close to her and pinched her arm with 
a gentle pressure, as if he had to feel the material sub- 
stance of her before he could believe. And then he put 
his hands on her shoulders, as he had done on the 
steamer that day at Bella Coola, and looked long and 
earnestly at her — looked till a crimson wave rose from 
her neck to the roots of her dark, glossy hair. And 
with that Roaring Bill took her in his arms, cuddled 


170 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


her up close to him, and kissed her, not once but many 
times. 

“ You really and truly came back, little person,” he 
murmured. “ Lord, Lord — and yet they say the day 
of miracles is past.” 

“You didn’t think I would, did you?” she asked, 
with her blushing face snuggled against his sturdy 
breast. “ Still, you gave me a map so that I could 
find the place ? ” 

“ That was just taking a desperate chance. No, I 
never expected to see you again, unless by accident,” 
he said honestly. “ And I’ve been crying the hurt of 
it to the stars all the way back from the coast. I only 
got here yesterday. I pretty near passed up coming 
back at all. I didn’t see how I could stay, with every- 
thing to remind me of you. Say, but it looked like a 
lonesome hole. I used to love this place — but I didn’t 
love it last night. It seemed about the most cheerless 
and depressing spot I could have picked. I think I 
should have ended up by touching a match to the whole 
business and hitting the trail to some new country. I 
don’t know. I’m not weak. But I don’t think I could 
have stayed here long.” 

They stood silent in the doorway for a long interval. 
Bill holding her close to him, and she blissfully con- 
tented, careless and unthinking of the future, so filled 
was she with joy of the present. 

“Do you love me much, little person?” Bill asked, 
after a little. 

She nodded vigorous assent. 

“ Why ? ” he desired to know. 


AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING 171 

“Oh, just because — because you’re a man, I sup- 
pose,” she returned mischievously. 

“ The world’s chuck-full of men,” Bill observed. 

“ Surely,” she looked up at him. “ But they’re not 
like you. Maybe it’s bad policy to start in flattering 
you, but there aren’t many men of your type. Billy-boy ; 
big and strong and capable, and at the same time kind 
and patient and able to understand things, things a 
woman can’t always put into words. Last fall you hurt 
my pride and nearly scared me to death by carrying me 
off in that lawless, headlong fashion of yours. But you 
seemed to know just how I felt about it, and you played 
fairer than any man I ever knew would have done under 
the same circumstances. I didn’t realize it until I got 
back into the civilized world. And then all at once I 
found myself longing for you — and for these old 
forests and the mountains and all. So I came back.” 

“ Wise girl,” he kissed her. “ You’ll never be sorry, 
I hope. It took some nerve, too. It’s a long trail 
from here to the outside. But this North country — 
it gets in your blood — if your blood’s red — and I 
don’t think there’s any water in your veins, little per- 
son. Lord ! I’m afraid to let go of you for fear you’ll 
vanish into nothing, like a Hindu fakir stunt.” 

“No fear,” Hazel laughed. “ I’ve got a pony tied 
to a tree out there, and four Siwashes and a camp out- 
fit over by Crooked Lake. If I should vanish I’d leave 
a plain trail for you to follow.” 

“ Well,” Bill said, after a short silence, “ it’s a hun- 
dred and forty miles to a Hudson’s Bay post where 
there’s a mission and a preacher. Let’s be on our way 


172 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


and get married. Then we’ll come back here and spend 
our honeymoon. Eh ? ” 

She nodded assent. 

“ Are you game to start in half an hour? ” he asked, 
holding her oflp at arm’s length admiringly. 

“ I’m game for anything, or I wouldn’t be here,” she 
retorted. 

“ Ail right. You just watch an exhibition of speedy 
packing,” Bill declared — and straightway fell to work. 

Hazel followed him about, helping to get the kyaks 
packed with food. They caught the three horses, and 
Bill stripped the pony of Hazel’s riding gear and placed 
a pack on him. Then he put her saddle on Silk. 

“ He’s your private mount henceforth,” Bill told her 
laughingly. “ You’ll ride him with more pleasure than 
you did the first time, won’t you? ” 

Presently they were ready to start, planning to ride 
past Limping George’s camp and tell him whither they 
were bound. Hazel was already mounted. Roaring 
Bill paused, with his toe in the stirrup, and smiled 
whimsically at her over his horse’s back. 

“ I forgot something,” said he, and went back into 
the cabin — whence he shortly emerged, bearing in his 
hand a sheet of paper upon which something was written 
in bold, angular characters. This he pinned on the 
door. Hazel rode Silk close to see what it might be, and 
laughed amusedly, for Bill had written : 

“ Mr. and Mrs. William WagstafF will be at home to 
their friends on and after June the twentieth.” 

He swung up into his saddle, and they jogged across 
the open. In the edge of the first timber they pulled 


AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING 173 


up and looked backward at the cabin drowsing silently 
under its sentinel tree. Roaring Bill reached out one 
arm and laid it across Hazel’s shoulders. 

‘‘ Little person,” he said soberly, “ here’s the end of 
one trail, and the beginning of another — the longest 
trail either of us has ever faced. How does it look to 
you.^ ” 

She caught his fingers with a quick, hard pressure. 

“ All trails look alike to me,” she said, with shining 
eyes, “ just so we hit them together.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


A BEIEF TIME OF PLANNING 

‘‘ What day of the month is this, Bill? ” Hazel asked. 

‘‘ Haven’t the least idea,” he answered lazily. “ Time 
is of no consequence to me at the present moment.” 

They were sitting on the warm earth before their 
cabin, their backs propped comfortably against a log, 
watching the sun sink behind a distant sky-line all 
notched with purple mountains upon which snow still 
lingered. Beside them a smudge dribbled a wisp of 
smoke sufficient to ward off a pestilential swarm of 
mosquitoes and black flies. In the clear, thin air 
of that altitude the occasional voices of what bird and 
animal life was abroad in the wild broke into the even- 
ing hush with astonishing distinctness — a lone goose 
winged above in wide circles, uttering his harsh and 
solitary cry. He had lost his mate, Bill told her. Far 
off in the bush a fox barked. The evening flight of the 
wild duck from Crooked Lake to a chain of swamps 
passed intermittently over the clearing with a sibilant 
whistle of wings. To all the wild things, no less than 
to the two who watched and listened to the forest traf- 
fic, it was a land of peace and plenty. 

“We ought to go up to the swamps to-morrow and 
rustle some duck eggs,” Bill observed irrelevantly — his 
eyes following the arrow flight of a mallard flock. But 


A BRIEF TIME OF PLANNING 175 

his wife was counting audibly, checking the days off on 
her fingers. 

“ This is July the twenty-fifth, Mr. Roaring Bill 
Wagstaff,” she announced. “ We’ve been married ex- 
actly one month.” 

“ A whole month ? ” he echoed, in mock astonishment. 
“ A regular calendar month of thirty-one days, huh ? 
You don’t say so.? Seems like it was only day before 
yesterday, little person.” 

“ I wonder,” she snuggled up a little closer to him, 
“ if any two people were ever as happy as we’ve been.? ” 

Bill put his arm across her shoulders and tilted her 
head back so that he could smile down into her face. 

“ They have been a bunch of golden days, haven’t 
they.?” he whispered. “We haven’t come to a single 
bump in the road yet. You won’t forget this joy time 
if we ever do hit real hard going, will you. Hazel .? ” 

“ The bird of ill omen croaks again,” she reproved. 
“ Why should we come to hard going, as you call 
it.?” 

“ We shouldn’t,” he declared. “ But most people 
do. And we might. One never can tell what’s ahead. 
Life takes queer and unexpected turns sometimes. 
We’ve got to live pretty close to each other, depend 
absolutely on each other in many ways — and that’s 
the acid test of human companionship. By and by, 
when the novelty wears off — maybe you’ll get sick 
of seeing the same old Bill around and nobody else. 
You see I’ve always been on my good behavior with 
you. Do you like me a lot.? ” 

His ^rm tightened with a quick and powerful pres- 


176 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


sure, then suddenly relaxed to let her lean back and 
stare up at him tenderly. 

“ I ought to punish you for saying things like that,” 
she pouted. “ Only I can’t think of any effective 
method. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof — 
and there is no evil in our days.” 

“ Amen,” he whispered softly — and they fell to si- 
lent contemplation of the rose and gold that spread in 
a wonderful blazon over all the western sky. 

‘‘ Twenty-fifth of July, eh ? ” he mused presently. 
“ Summer’s half gone already. I didn’t realize it. 
We ought to be stirring pretty soon, lady.” 

“ Let’s stir into the house, then,” she suggested. 
“ These miserable little black flies have found a tender 
place on me. My, but they’re bloodthirsty insects.” 

Bill laughed, and they took refuge in the cabin, the 
doorways and windows of which were barricaded with 
cotton mosquito net against the winged swarms that 
buzzed hungrily without. Ensconced in the big chair 
by the fireplace, with Bill sprawled on the bearskin at 
her feet. Hazel came back to his last remark. 

“ Why did you say it was time for us to be stirring, 
Billum.? ” 

‘‘ Because these Northern seasons are so blessed 
short,” he answered. “We ought to try and do a little 
good for ourselves — make hay while the sun shines. 
We’ll needa da mon’.” 

“ Needa fiddlesticks,” she laughed. “ What do we 
need money for.? It costs practically nothing to live 
up here. Why this sudden desire to pursue the dollar.? 
Besides, how are you going to pursue it? ” 


A BRIEF TIME OF PLANNING 177 

“ Go prospecting,” he replied promptly. ‘‘ Hit the 
trail for a place I know where there’s oodles of coarse 
gold, if you can get to it at low water. How’d you like 
to go into the Upper Naas country this fall, trap all 
winter, work the sand bars in the spring, and come out 
next fall with a sack of gold it would take a horse to 
pack.? ” 

Hazel clapped her hands. 

‘‘ Oh, Bill, wouldn’t that be fine? ” she cried. Across 
her mind flashed a vivid picture of the journey, preg- 
nant with adventure, across the wild hinterlands — they 
two together. “ I’d love to.” 

It won’t be all smooth sailing,” he warned. ‘‘ It’s 
a long trip and a hard one, and the winter will be longer 
and harder than the trip. We won’t have the semi- 
luxuries we’ve got here in this cabin. Not by a long 
shot. Still, there’s a chance for a good big stake, right 
in that one trip.” 

“But why the necessity for making a stake?” she 
inquired thoughtfully, after a lapse of five minutes. 
“ I thought you didn’t care anything about money so 
long as you had enough to get along on? And we 
surely have that. We’ve got over two thousand dol- 
lars in real money — and no place to spend it — so 
we’re compelled to save.” 

Bill blew a smoke ring over his head and watched 
it vanish up toward the dusky roof beams before he 
answered. 

“ Well, little person,” said he, “ that’s very true, and 
we can’t truthfully say that stern necessity is treading 
on our heels. The possession of money has never been 


178 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


a crying need with me. But I hadn’t many wants 
when I was playing a lone hand, and I generally let 
the future take care of itself. It was always easy to 
dig up money enough to buy books and grub or any- 
thing I wanted. Now that I’ve assumed a certain re- 
sponsibility, it has begun to dawn on me that we’d en- 
joy life better if we were assured of a competence. 
We can live on the country here indefinitely. But we 
won’t stay here always. I’m pretty much contented 
just now. So are you. But I know from past experi- 
ence that the outside will grow more alluring as 
time passes. You’ll get lonesome for civilization. It’s 
the most natural thing in the world. And when we go 
out to mix with our fellow humans we want to meet 
them on terms of worldly equality. Which is to say 
with good clothes on, and a fat bank roll in our pocket. 
The best is none too good for us, lady. And the best 
costs money. Anyway, I’ll plead guilty to changing, 
or, rather, modifying my point of view — getting mar- 
ried has opened up new vistas of pleasure for us that 
call for dollars. And last, but not least, old girl, while 
I love to loaf, I can only loaf about so long in content- 
ment. Sabe.P I’ve got to be doing something; whether 
it was jfrofitable or not has never mattered, just so it 
was action.” 

“ I sabe, as you call it,” Hazel smiled. “ Of course 
I do. Only lazy people like to loaf all the time. I love 
this place, and we might stay here for years and be sat- 
isfied. But — ” 

“ But we’d be better satisfied to stay if we knew that 
we could leave it whenever we wanted to,” he inter- 


A BRIEF TIME OF PLANNING 179 


rupted. “ That’s the psychology of the human ani- 
mal, all right. We don’t like to be coerced, even by 
circumstances. Well, granted health, one can be boss 
of old Dame Circumstance, if one has the price in cold 
cash. It’s a melancholy fact that the good things of 
the world can only be had for a consideration.” 

“ If you made a lot of money mining, we could travel 
— one could do lots of things,” she reflected. “ I don’t 
think I’d want to live in a city again. But it would 
be nice to go there sometimes.” 

“Yes, dear girl, it would,” Bill agreed. “ With a 
chum to help you enjoy things. I never got much fun 
out of the bright lights by myself — it was too lone- 
some. I used to prowl around by myself with an ana- 
lytical eye upon humanity, and I was always bumping 
into a lot of sordidness and suflPering that I couldn’t in 
the least remedy, and it often gave me a bad taste in 
my mouth. Then I’d beat it for the woods — and they 
always looked good to me. The trouble was that I had 
too much time to think, and nothing to do when I hit 
a live town. It would be different now. We can do 
things together that I couldn’t do alone, and you 
couldn’t do alone. Remains only to get the where- 
withal. And since I know how to manage tfiat with a 
1 minimum amount of effort, I’d like to be about it before 
I somebody else gets ahead of me. Though there’s small 
; chance of that.” 

; “ We’ll be partners,” said she. “ How will we divide 

I the profits, Billum.?^” 

1 “ We’ll split even,” he declared. “ That is. I’ll make 

t the money, and you’ll spend it.” 

1 


i8o NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

They chuckled over this conceit, and as the dusk 
closed in slowly they fell to planning the details. Hazel 
lit the lamp, and in its yellow glow pored over maps 
while Bill idly sketched their route on a sheet of paper. 
His objective lay east of the head of the Naas proper, 
where amid a wild tangle of mountains and mountain 
torrents three turbulent rivers, the Stikine, the Skeena, 
and the Naas, took their rise. A God-forsaken region, 
he told her, where few white men had penetrated. The 
peaks flirted with the clouds, and their sides were scarred 
with glaciers. A lonesome, brooding land, the home 
of a vast and seldom-broken silence. 

“ But there’s all kinds of game and fur in there,” 
Bill remarked thoughtfully. “ And gold. Still, it’s a 
fierce country for a man to take his best girl into. I 
don’t know whether I ought to tackle it.” 

“ We couldn’t be more isolated than we are here,” 
Hazel argued, “ if we were in the arctic. Look at that 
poor woman at Pelt House. Three babies born since 
she saw a doctor or another woman of her own color! 
What’s a winter by ourselves compared to that. And 
she didn’t think it so great a hardship. Don’t you 
worry about me, Mr. Bill. I think it will be fun. I’m 
a real pioneer at heart. The wild places look good to 
me — when you’re along.” 

She received her due reward for that, and then, the 
long twilight having brought the hour to a lateness that 
manifested itself by sundry yawns on their part, they 
went to bed. 

With breakfast over. Bill put a compass in his pocket, J 
after having ground his ax blade to a keen edge. | 


A BRIEF TIME OF PLANNING i8i 


‘‘ Come on,” said he, then ; ‘‘ I’m going to transact 
some important business.” 

“ What is it ? ” she promptly demanded with much 
curiosity. 

“ This domicile of ours, girl,” he told her, while he 
led the way through the surrounding timber, “ is ours 
only by grace of the wilderness. It’s built on unsur- 
veyed government land — land that I have no more 
legal claim to than any passing trapper. I never 
thought of it before — which goes to show that this 
double-harness business puts a different face on ’most 
everything. But I’m going to remedy that. Of 
course, it may be twenty years before this country be- 
gins to settle up enough so that some individual may 
cast a covetous eye on this particular spot — but I’m 
not going to take any chances. I’m going to formally 
stake a hundred and sixty acres of this and apply for 
its purchase. Then we’ll have a cinch on our home. 
We’ll always have a refuge to fly to, no matter where 
we go.” 

She nodded appreciation of this. The cabin in the 
clearing stood for some of those moments that always 
loom large and unforgettable in every woman’s experi- 
ence. She had come there once in hot, shamed anger, 
and she had come again as a bride. It was the handi- 
work of a man she loved with a passion that sometimes 
startled her by its intensity. She had plumbed depths 
of bitterness there, and, contrariwise, reached a point 
of happiness she had never believed possible. Just the 
mere possibility of that place being given over to others 
roused in her a pang of resentment. It was theirs, 


i 82 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


hers and Bill’s, and, being a woman, she viewed its pos- 
session jealously. 

So she watched with keen interest what he did. 
Which, in truth, was simple enough. He worked his 
way to a point southeast of the clearing till they gained 
a little rise whence through the treetops they could 
look back and see the cabin roof. There Bill cut off 
an eight-inch jack pine, leaving the stump approxi- 
mately four feet high. This he hewed square, the four 
flat sides of the post facing respectively the cardinal 
points of the compass. On one smoothed surface Bill 
set to work with his pocketknife. Hazel sat down and 
watched while he busied himself at this. And when he 
had finished she read, in deep-carved letters: 

W. WAGSTAFF’S S. E. CORNER. 

Then he penned on a sheet of letter paper a brief 
notice to the effect that he, William Wagstaff, intended 
to apply for the purchase of the land embraced in an 
area a half mile square, of which the post was the south- 
east comer mark. This notice he fastened to the 
stump with a few tacks, and sat down to rest from his 
labors. 

‘‘ How long do you suppose that will stay there, 
and who is there to read it, if it does ” Hazel ob- 
served. 

“ Search me. The moose and the deer and the 
timber wolves, I guess,” Bill grinned. ‘‘The chances 
are the paper won’t last long, with winds and rains. 
But it doesn’t matter. It’s simply a form prescribed 


A BRIEF TIME OF PLANNING 183 


by the Land Act of British Columbia, and, so long as 
I go through the legal motions, that lets me out. Mat- 
ter of form, you know.” 

‘‘ Then what else do you have to do ? ” 

“ Nothing but furnish the money when the land de- 
partment gets around to accept my application,” he 
said. “ I can get an agent to attend to all the details. 
Oh, I have to furnish a description of the land by nat- 
ural boundaries, to give them an idea of about where 
it’s situated. Well, let’s take a look at our estate 
from another corner.’^ 

This, roughly ascertained by sighting a line with the 
compass and stepping off eight hundred and eighty 
yards, brought them up on a knoll that commanded 
the small basin of which the clearing was practically 
in the center. 

“ Aha ! ” Bill exclaimed. ‘‘ Look at our ranch, 
would you; our widespread acres basking in the sun. 
A quarter section is quite a chunk. Do you know I 
never thought much about it before, but there’s a piece 
of the finest land that lies outdoors. I wasn’t looking 
for land when I squatted there. It was a pretty place, 
and there was hay for our horses in that meadow, and 
trout in the creek back of the cabin. So I built the 
old shack largely on the conveniences and the natural 
beauty of the spot. But let me tell you, if this coun- 
try should get a railroad and settle up, that quarter 
section might produce all the income we’d need, just 
out of hay and potatoes. How’d you like to be a 
farmer’s wife, huh ? ” 

“ Fine,” she smiled. “ Look at the view — it isn’t 


184 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


gorgeous. It’s — it’s simply peaceful and quiet and 
soothing. I hate to leave it.” 

“ Better be sorry to leave a place than glad to get 
away,” he answered lightly. “ Come on, let’s pike home 
and get things in order for the long trail, woman o’ 
mine. I’ll teach you how to be a woodland vagabond.” 


CHAPTER XVn 


EN EOUTE 

Long since Hazel had become aware that whatsoever 
her husband set about doing he did swiftly and with in- 
flexible purpose. There was no malingering or doubt- 
ful hesitation. Once his mind was made up, he acted. 
Thus, upon the third day from the land staking they 
bore away eastward from the clearing, across a track- 
less area, traveling by the sun and Bill’s knowledge of 
the country. 

“ Some day there’ll be trails blazed through here by 
a paternal government,” he laughed over his shoulder, 
“ for the benefit of the public. But we don’t need ’em, 
thank goodness.” 

The buckskin pony Hazel had bought for the trip 
in with Limping George ambled sedately under a pack 
containing bedding, clothes, and a light shelter tent. 
The black horse. Nigger, he of the cocked ear and the 
rolling eye, carried in a pair of kyaks six weeks’ supply 
of food. Bill led the way, seconded by Hazel on easy- 
gaited Silk. Behind her trailed the pack horses like 
dogs well broken to heel, patient under their heavy 
burdens. Off* in the east the sun was barely clear of 
the towering Rockies, and the woods were still cool 
and shadowy, full of aromatic odors from plant and 
tree. 


i86 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Hazel followed her man contentedly. They were to- 
gether upon the big adventure, just as she had seen it 
set forth in books, and she found it good. For her 
there was no more diverging of trails, no more problems 
looming fearsomely at the journey’s end. To jog easily 
through woods and over open meadows all day, and at 
night to lie with her head pillowed on Bill’s arm, peering 
up through interlocked branches at a myriad of gleam- 
ing stars — that was sufficient to fill her days. To 
live and love and be loved, with all that had ever seemed 
hateful and sordid and mean thrust into a remote back- 
ground. It was almost too good to be true, she told 
herself. Yet it was indubitably true. And she was 
grateful for the fact. Touches of the unavoidable bit- 
terness of life had taught her the worth of days that 
could be treasured in the memory. 

Occasionally she would visualize the cabin drowsing 
lifeless in its emerald setting, haunted by the rabbits 
that played timidly about in the twilight, or perhaps 
a wandering deer peering his wide-eyed curiosity from 
the timber’s edge. The books and rugs and curtains 
were stowed in boxes and bundles and hung by wires to 
the ridge log to keep them from the busy bush-tailed 
rats. Everything was done up carefully and put away 
for safekeeping, as became a house that is to be long 
untenanted. 

The mother instinct to keep a nest snug and cozy gave 
her a tiny pang over the abandoned home. The dust of 
many months would gather on the empty chairs and 
shelves. Still it was only a passing absence. They 
would come back, with treasure wrested from the strong' 


EN ROUTE 187 

box of the wild. Surely Fortune could not forbear 
smiling on a mate like hers.? 

There was no monotony in the passing days. Rivers 
barred their way. These they forded or swam, or fer- 
ried a makeshift raft of logs, as seemed most fit. Once 
their raft came to grief in the maw of a snarling cur- 
rent, and they laid up two days to dry their saturated 
belongings. Once their horses, impelled by some mys- 
terious home yearning, hit the back trail in a black 
night of downpour, and they trudged half a day through 
wet grass and dripping scrub to overtake the truants. 
Thunderstorms drove up, shattering the hush of the 
land with ponderous detonations, assaulting them with 
fierce bursts of rain. Haps and mishaps alike they 
accepted with an equable spirit and the true philosophy 
of the trail — to take things as they come. When rain 
deluged them, there was always shelter to be found and 
fire to warm them. If the flies assailed too fiercely, a 
smudge brought easement of that ill. And when the 
land lay smiling under a pleasant sun, they rode light- 
hearted and care-free, singing or in silent content, as 
the spirit moved. If they rode alone, they felt none of 
that loneliness which is so integral a part of the still, 
unpeopled places. Each day was something more than 
a mere toll of so many miles traversed. The unex- 
pected, for which both were eager-eyed, lurked on the 
shoulder of each mountain, in the hollow of every cool 
canon, or met them boldly in the open, naked and un- 
afraid. 

Bearing up to where the Nachaco debouches from 
Fraser Lake, with a Hudson’s Bay fur post and an In- 


i88 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


dian mission on its eastern fringe, they came upon a 
blazed line in the scrub timber. Roaring Bill pulled 
up, and squinted away down the narrow lane fresh with 
ax marks. 

“Well,” said he, “I wonder what’s coming ofF now? 
That looks like a survey line of some sort. It isn’t 
a trail ^ — too wide. Let’s follow it a while. 

“ I’ll bet a nickel,” he asserted next, “ that’s a rail- 
road survey.” They had traversed two miles more or 
less, and the fact was patent that the blazed line sought 
a fairly constant level across country. “ A land survey 
runs all same latitude and longitude. Huh ! ” 

Half an hour of easy jogging set the seal of truth 
on his assertion. They came upon a man squinting 
through a brass instrument set on three legs, directing, 
with alternate wavings of his outspread hands, certain 
activities of other men ahead of him. 

“ Well, I’ll be — ” he bit off the sentence, and stared 
a moment in frank astonishment at Hazel. Then he 
took off his hat and bowed. “ Good morning,” he 
greeted politely. 

“ Sure,” Bill grinned. “We have mornings like this 
around here all the time. What all are you fellows do- 
ing in the wilderness, anyway? Railroad? ” 

“ Cross-section work for the G. T. P.,” the surveyor 
replied. 

“ Huh,” Bill grunted. “ Is it a dead cinch, or is it 
something that may possibly come to pass in the misty 
future? ” 

“ As near a cinch as anything ever is,” the surveyor 
answered. “ Construction has begun — at both ends. 


EN ROUTE 189 

I thought the few white folks in this country kept tab 
on anything as important as a new railroad.” 

« We’ve heard a lot, but none of ’em has transpired 
yet ; not in my time, anyway,” Bill replied dryly. 

However, the world keeps right on moving. I’ve 
heard more or less talk of this, but I didn’t know it had 
got past the talking stage. What’s their Pacific ter- 
minal ? ” 

“ Prince Rupert — new town on a peninsula north of 
the mouth of the Skeena,” said the surveyor. “ It’s 
a rush job all the way through, I believe. Three years 
to spike up the last rail. And that’s going some for 
a transcontinental road. Both the Dominion and B. 
C. governments have guaranteed the company’s bonds 
away up into millions.” 

“ Be a great thing for this country — say, where 
does it cross the Rockies? — ^what’s the general route? ” 
Bill asked abruptly. 

“ Goes over the range through Yellowhead Pass. 
From here it follows the Nachaco to Fort George, then 
up the Fraser by Tete Juan Cache, through the pass, 
then down the Athabasca till it switches over to strike 
Edmonton.” 

‘‘ Uh-huh,” Bill nodded. “ One of the modem labors 
of Hercules. Well, we’ve got to peg. So long.” 

‘‘ Our camp’s about five miles ahead. Better stop in 
and noon,” the surveyor invited, “ if it’s on your road.” 

“ Thanks. Maybe we will,” Bill returned. 

The surveyor lifted his hat, with a swift glance of 
admiration at Hazel, and they passed with a mutual ‘‘ so 
long.” 


igo 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“What do you think of that, old girl?” Bill ob- 
served presently. “ A real, honest-to-God railroad go- 
ing by within a hundred miles of our shack. Three 
years. It’ll be there before we know it. We’ll have 
neighbors to burn.” 

“ A hundred miles ! ” Hazel laughed. “ Is that your 
idea of a neighborly distance? ” 

“ What’s a hundred miles ? ” he defended. “ Two 
days’ ride, that’s all. And the kind of people that come 
to settle in a country like this don’t stick in sight of 
the cars. They’re like me — need lots of elbow room. 
There’ll be hardy souls looking for a location up where 
we are before very long. You’ll see.” 

They passed other crews of men, surveyors with 
transits, chainmen, stake drivers, ax gangs widening 
the path through the timber. Most of them looked at 
Hazel in frank surprise, and stared long after she 
passed by. And when an open bottom beside a noisy 
little creek showed the scattered tents of the survey 
camp. Hazel said: 

“ Let’s not stop. Bill.” 

He looked back over his shoulder with a comprehend- 
ing smile. 

“ Getting shy? Make you uncomfortable to have all 
these boys look at you, little person? ” he bantered. 

All right, we won’t stop. But all these fellows prob- 
ably haven’t seen a white woman for months. You ■ 
can’t blame them for admiring. You do look good to ^ 
other men besides me, you know.” ^ 

So they rode through the camp with but a nod to the | 
aproned cook, who thrust out his head, and a gray- * 


EN ROUTE 


191 


haired man with glasses, who humped over a drafting 
board under an awning. Their noon fire they built at 
a spring five miles beyond. 

Thereafter they skirted three lakes in succession, 
Fraser, Bums, and Decker, and climbed over a low di- 
vide to drop into the Bulkley Valley — a pleasant, roll- 
ing country, where the timber was interspersed with 
patches of open grassland and set with small lakes, 
wherein schools of big trout lived their finny lives un- 
harried by anglers — save when some wandering Indian 
snared one with a primitive net. 

Far down this valley they came upon the first sign of 
settlement. Hardy souls, far in advance of the coming 
railroad, had built here and there a log cabin and were 
hard at it clearing and plowing and getting the land 
ready for crops. Four or five such lone ranches they 
passed, tarrying overnight at one where they found a 
broad-bosomed woman with a brood of tow-headed 
children. Her husband was out after supplies — a 
week’s journey. She kept Hazel from her bed till after 
midnight, talking. They had been there over winter, 
and Hazel WagstafF was the first white woman she had 
bespoken in seven months. There were other women in 
the valley farther along ; but fifty or sixty miles leaves 
scant opportunity for visiting when there is so much 
work to be done ere wild acres will feed hungry mouths. 

At length they fared into Hazleton, which is the hub 
of a vast area over which men pursue gold and furs. 
Some hundred odd souls were gathered there, where the 
stern-wheel steamers that ply the turgid Skeena reach 
the head of navigation. A land-recording office and a 


192 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


mining recorder Hazleton boasted as proof of its civic 
importance. The mining recorder, who combined in 
himself many capacities besides his governmental func- 
tion, undertook to put through Bill’s land deal. He 
knew Bill Wagstaff. 

“ Wise man,” he nodded, over the description. If 
some more uh these boys that have blazed trails through 
this country would do the same thing, they’d be better 
off. A chunk of land anywhere in this country is a 
good bet now. We’ll have rails here from the coast in 
a year. Better freeze onto a couple uh lots here in 
Hazleton, while they’re low. Be plumb to the skies 
in ten years. Natural place for a city. Bill. It’s as- 
tonishin’ how the settlers is cornin’.” 

There was ocular evidence of this last, for they had 
followed in a road well rutted from loaded wagons. 
But Bill invested in no real estate, notwithstanding the 
positive assurance that Hazleton was on the ragged edge 
of a boom. 

“ Maybe, maybe,” he admitted. “ But I’ve got other 
fish to fry. That one piece up by Pine River wiU do 
me for a while.” 

Here where folk talked only of gold and pelts and 
railroads and settlement and the coming boom that 
would make them all rich. Bill Wagstaff added two more 
ponies to his pack train. These he loaded down with 
food, staples only, flour, sugar, beans, salt, tea and 
coffee, and a sack of dried fruit. Also he bestowed 
upon Nigger a further burden of six dozen steel traps. 

And in the cool of a midsummer morning, before Ha- 
zleton had rubbed the sleep out of its collective eyes and 


EN ROUTE 


193 


taken up the day’s work of discussing its future great- 
ness, Roaring Bill and his wife draped the mosquito 
nets over their heads and turned their faces north. 

They bore out upon a wagon road. For a brief dis- 
tance only did this endure, then dwindled to a path. A 
turn in this hid sight of the clustered log houses and 
tents, and the two steamers that lay up against the 
bank. The river itself was soon lost in the far stretches 
of forest. Once more they rode alone in the wilder- 
ness. For the first time Hazel felt a quick shrinking 
from the North, an awe of its huge, silent spaces, which 
could so easily engulf thousands such as they and still 
remain a land untamed. 

But this feeling passed, and she came again under the 
spell of the trail, riding with eyes and ears alert, sit- 
ting at ease in the saddle, and taking each new crook 
in the way with quickened interest. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE WINTERING PLACE 

On the second day they crossed the Skeena, a risky 
and tedious piece of business, for the river ran deep and 
strong. And shortly after this crossing they came to 
a line of wire strung on poles. Originally a fair pas- 
sageway had been cleared through low brush and dense 
timber alike. A pathway of sorts still remained, 
though dim and little trodden and littered with down 
trees of various sizes. Bill followed this. 

“ What is the wire ? A rural telephone ? Oh, I re- 
member you told me once — that Yukon telegraph,” 
Hazel remarked. 

“ Uh-huh. That’s the famous Telegraph Trail,” 
Bill answered. “ Runs from Ashcroft clear to Dawson 
City, on the Yukon; that is, the line does. There’s a 
lineman’s house every twenty miles or so, and an op- 
erator every forty miles. The best thing about it is 
that it furnishes us with a sort of a road. And that’s 
mighty lucky, for there’s some tough going ahead 
of us.” 

So long as they held to the Telegraph Trail the way 
led through fairly decent country. In open patches 
there was ample grazing for their horses. Hills there 
were, to be sure ; all the land rolled away in immense 
forested billows, but the mountains stood off on the 


THE WINTERING PLACE 


195 


right and left, frowning in the distance. A plague of 
flies harassed them continually, Hazel’s hands suffering 
most, even though she kept religiously to thick buckskin 
gloves. The poisonous bites led to scratching, which 
bred soreness. And as they gained a greater elevation 
and the timbered bottoms gave way to rocky hills over 
which she must perforce walk and lead her horse, the 
sweat of the exertion stung and burned intolerably, like 
salt water on an open wound. 

Minor hardships, these; scarcely to be dignified by 
that name, more in the nature of aggravated discom- 
forts they were. But they irked, and, like any accumu- 
lation of small things, piled up a disheartening total. 
By imperceptible degrees the glamour of the trail, the 
lure of gypsying, began to lessen. She found herself 
longing for the Pine River cabin, for surcease from this 
never-ending journey. But she would not have owned 
this to Roaring Bill ; not for the world. It savored of 
weakness, disloyalty. She felt ashamed. Still — it 
was no longer a pleasure jaunt. The country they bore 
steadily up into grew more and more forbidding. The 
rugged slopes bore no resemblance to the kindly, peace- 
ful land where the cabin stood. Swamps and reedy 
lakes lurked in low places. The hills stood forth grim 
and craggy, gashed with deep-cleft gorges, and rising 
to heights more grim and desolate at the uttermost 
reach of her vision. And into the heart of this, toward 
a far-distant area where she could faintly distinguish 
virgin snow on peaks that pierced the sky, they traveled 
day after day. 

Shortly before reaching Station Six they crossed the 


196 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Naas, foaming down to the blue Pacific. And at Sta- 
tion Seven, Bill turned squarely off the Telegraph Trail 1 
and struck east by north. It had been a break in the 1 
monotony of each day’s travel to come upon the lonely 
men in their little log houses. When they turned away 
from the single wire that linked them up with the outer 1 
world, it seemed to Hazel as if the profound, disquiet- 
ing stillness of the North became intensified. 

Presently the way grew rougher. If anything. 
Roaring Bill increased his pace. He himself no longer 
rode. When the steepness of the hills and canons made 
the going hard the packs were redivided, and hence- 
forth Satin bore on his back a portion of the supplies. 
Bill led the way tirelessly. Through flies, river cross- 
ings, camp labor, and all the petty irritations of the 
trail he kept an unruffled spirit, a fine, enduring pa- 
tience that Hazel marveled at and admired. Many a 
time, wakening at some slight stir, she would find him 
cooking breakfast. In every way within his power he 
saved her. 

“ I got to take good care of you, little person,” he 
would say. ‘‘ I’m used to this sort of thing, and I’m 
tough as buckskin. But it sure isn’t proving any pic- 
nic for you. It’s a lot worse in this way than I thought 
it would be. And we’ve got to get in there before the 
snow begins to fly, or it will play the dickens with us.” 

Many a strange shift were they put to. Once Bill 
had to fell a great spruce across a twenty-foot crevice. 

It took him two days to hew it flat so that his horses 
could be led over. The depth was bottomless to the ^ 
eye, but from far below rose the cavernous growl | 


THE WINTERING PLACE 


197 


of rushing water, and Hazel held her breath as each 
animal stepped gingerly over the narrow bridge. One 
misstep — 

Once they climbed three weary days up a precipitous 
mountain range, and, turned back in sight of the 
crest by an impassable cliff, were forced to back track 
and swing in a fifty-mile detour. 

In an air line Roaring Bill’s destination lay approxi- 
mately two hundred miles north — almost due north — 
of Hazleton. By the devious route they were compelled 
to take the distance was doubled, more than doubled. 
And their rate of progress now fell short of a ten-mile 
average. September was upon them. The days dwin- 
dled in length, and the nights grew to have a frosty nip. 

Early and late he pushed on. Two camp necessities 
were fortunately abundant, grass and water. Even so, 
the stress of the trail told on the horses. They lost 
flesh. The extreme steepness of succeeding hills bred 
galls under the heavy packs. They grew leg weary, 
no longer following each other with sprightly step and 
heads high. Hazel pitied them, for she herself was trail 
weary beyond words. The vagabond instinct had 
fallen asleep. The fine aura of romance no longer hov- 
ered over the venture. 

Sometimes when dusk ended the day’s journey and 
she swung her stiffened limbs out of the saddle, she would 
cheerfully have foregone all the gold in the North to be 
at her ease before the fireplace in their distant cabin, 
with her man’s head nesting in her lap, and no toll of 
weary miles looming sternly on the morrow’s horizon. 
It was all work, trying work, the more trying because 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


198 

she sensed a latent uneasiness on her husband’s part, an 
uneasiness she could never induce him to embody in 
words. Nevertheless, it existed, and she resented its 
existence — a trouble she could not share. But she 
could not put her finger on the cause, for Bill merely 
smiled a denial when she mentioned it. 

Nor did she fathom the cause until upon a certain 
day which fell upon the end of a week’s wearisome trav- 
erse of the hardest country yet encountered. Up and 
up and still higher he bore into a range of beetling 
crags, and always his gaze was fixed steadfastly and du- 
biously on the serrated backbone toward which they as- 
cended with infinite toil and hourly risk, skirting sheer 
cliffs on narrow rock ledges, working foot by foot over 
declivities where the horses dug their hoofs into a pre- 
carious toe hold, and where a slip meant broken bones 
on the ragged stones below. But win to the uppermost 
height they did, where an early snowfall lay two inches 
deep in a thin forest of jack pine. 

They broke out of a canon up which they had strug- 
gled all day onto a level plot where the pine stood in 
somber ranks. A spring creek split the flat in two. 
Beside this tiny stream Bill unlashed his packs. It still 
lacked two hours of dark. But he made no comment, 
and Hazel forbore to trouble him with questions. Once 
the packs were off and the horses at liberty. Bill caught 
up his rifle. 

‘‘ Come on. Hazel,” he said. “ Let’s take a little 
,hike.” 

The flat was small, and once clear of it the pines 
thinned out on a steep, rocky slope so that westward 


THE WINTERING PLACE 


199 


they could overlook a vast network of canons and moun- 
tain spurs. But ahead of them the mountain rose to an 
upstanding backbone of jumbled granite, and on this 
backbone Bill Wagstalf bent an anxious eye. Pres- 
ently they sat down on a bowlder to take a breathing 
spell after a stiff stretch of climbing. Hazel slipped 
her hand in his and whispered : 

What is it, Billy-boy ? ” 

“ I’m afraid we can’t get over here with the horses,” 
he answered slowly. “ And if we can’t find a pass of 
some kind — well, come on ! It isn’t more than a quar- 
ter of a mile to the top.” 

He struck out again, clambering over great bowl- 
ders, clawing his way along rocky shelves, with a hand 
outstretched to help her now and then. Her percep- 
tions quickened by the hint he had given. Hazel viewed 
the long ridge for a possible crossing, and she was 
forced to the reluctant conclusion that no hoofed beast 
save mountain sheep or goat could cross that divide. 
Certainly not by the route they were taking. And 
north and south as far as she could see the backbone 
ran like a solid wall. 

It was a scant quarter mile to the top, beyond which 
no farther mountain crests showed — only clear, blue 
sky. But it was a stretch that taxed her endurance to 
the limit for the next hour. Just short of the top Bill 
halted, and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. And as he 
stood his gaze suddenly became fixed, a concentrated 
stare at a point northward. He raised his glasses. 

“ By thunder ! ” he exclaimed. ‘‘ I believe — it’s me 
for the top.” 


200 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE . 


He went up the few remaining yards with a haste 
that left Hazel panting behind. Above her he stood 
balanced on a bowlder, cut sharp against the sky, and 
she reached him just as he lowered the field glasses with 
a long sigh of relief. His eyes shone with exultation. 

‘‘ Come on up on the perch,” he invited, and reached 
forth a long, muscular arm, drawing her up close be- 
side him on the rock. 

“ Behold the Promised Land,” he breathed, ‘‘ and the 
gateway thereof, lying a couple of miles to the north.” 

They were, it seemed to Hazel, roosting precariously 
on the very summit of the world. On both sides the 
mountain pitched away sharply in rugged folds. Dis- 
tance smoothed out the harsh declivities, blurred over the 
tremendous canons. Looking eastward, she saw an am- 
ple basin, which gave promise of level ground on its 
floor. True, it was ringed about with sky-scraping 
peaks, save where a small valley opened to the south. 
Behind them, between them and the far Pacific rolled 
a sea of mountains, snow-capped, glacier-torn, gigantic. 

“ Down there,” Roaring Bill waved his hand, “ there’s 
a little meadow, and turf to walk on. Lord, I’ll be glad 
to get out of these rocks 1 You’ll never catch me com- 
ing in this way again. It’s sure tough going. And 
I’ve been scared to death for a week, thinking we 
couldn’t get through.” 

“ But we can? ” 

Yes, easy,” he assured. “ Take the glasses and 
look. That flat we left our outfit in runs pretty well 
to the top, about two miles along. Then there’s a notch 
in the ridge that you can’t get with the naked eye, and 


THE WINTERING PLACE 


201 


a wider canon running down into the basin. It’s the 
only decent break in the divide for fifty miles so far as 
I can see. This backbone runs to high mountains both 
north and south of us — like the great wall of China. 
We’re lucky to hit this pass.” 

“ Suppose we couldn’t get over here ? ” Hazel asked. 
‘‘ What if there hadn’t been a pass ? ” 

“ That was beginning to keep me awake nights,” he 
confessed. “ I’ve been studying this rock wall for a 
week. It doesn’t look good from the east side, but it’s 
worse on the west, and I couldn’t seem to locate the gap 
I spotted from the basin one time. And if we couldn’t 
get through, it meant a hundred miles or more back 
south around that white peak you see. Over a worse 
country than we’ve come through — and no cinch on 
getting over at that. Do you realize that it’s getting 
late in the year? Winter may come — bing! — inside 
of ten days. And me caught in a rock pile, with no 
cabin to shelter my best girl, and no hay up to feed my 
horses! You bet it bothered me.” 

She hugged him sympathetically, and Bill smiled 
down at her. 

“ But it’s plain sailing now,” he continued. “ I 
know that basin and all the country beyond it. It’s a 
pretty decent camping place, and there’s a fairly easy 
way out.” 

He bestowed a reassuring kiss upon her. They sat 
on the bowlder for a few minutes, then scrambled down- 
hill to the jack-pine flat, and built their evening fire. 
And 'for the first time in many days Roaring Bill whis- 
tled and lightly burst into snatches of song in the deep. 


,202 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


bellowing voice that had given him his name back in the 
Cariboo country. His humor was infectious. Hazel felt 
the gods of high adventure smiling broadly upon them 
once more. 

Before daybreak they were up and packed. In the 
dim light of dawn Bill picked his way up through the 
jack-pine flat. With easy traveling they made such 
time as enabled them to cross through the narrow gash 
— cut in the divide by some glacial offshoot when the 
Klappan Range was young — before the sun, a ball of 
molten fire, heaved up from behind the far mountain 
chain. 

At noon, two days later, they stepped out of a heavy 
stand of spruce into a sun-warmed meadow, where ripe, 
yellow grasses waved to their horses’ knees. Hazel 
came afoot, a fresh-killed deer lashed across Silk’s back. 

Bill hesitated, as if taking his bearings, then led to 
where a rocky spur of a hill jutted into the meadow’s 
edge. A spring bubbled out of a pebbly basin, and he 
poked about in the grass beside it with his foot, pres- 
ently stooping to pick up something which proved to be 
a short bit of charred stick. 

“ The remains of my last camp fire,” he smiled rem- 
iniscently. “ Packs off, old pal. We’re through with 
the trail for a while.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF 

To such as view with a kindly eye the hushed areas 
of virgin forest and the bold cliffs and peaks of moun- 
tain ranges, it is a joy to tread unknown trails, camp- 
ing as the spirit moves, journeying leisurely and in 
decent comfort from charming spot to spots more charm- 
ing. With no spur of need to drive, such inconsequen- 
tial wandering gives to each day and incident an added 
zest. Nature appears to have on her best bib and 
tucker for the occasion. The alluring finger of the un- 
known beckons alluringly onward, so that if one should 
betimes strain to physical exhaustion in pursuit, that is 
a matter of no moment whatever. 

But it is a different thing to face the wilderness for 
a purpose, to journey in haste toward a set point, with 
a penalty swift and sure for failure to reach that point 
in due season. Especially is this so in the high lati- 
tudes. Natural barriers uprear before the traveler, 
barriers which he must scale with sweat and straining 
muscles. He must progress by devious ways, seeking 
always the line of least resistance. The season of sum- 
mer is brief, a riot of flowers and vegetation. A cer- 
tain number of weeks the land smiles and flaunts gay 
flowers in the shadow of the ancient glaciers. Then 


204 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


the frost and snow come back to their own, and the long 
nights shut down like a pall. 

Brought to it by a kindlier road, Hazel would have 
found that nook in the Klappan Range a pleasant 
enough place. She could not deny its beauty. It 
snuggled in the heart of a wild tangle of hills all tur- 
reted and battlemented with ledge and pinnacle of rock, 
from which ran huge escarpments clothed with spruce 
and pine, scarred and gashed on every hand with slides 
and deep-worn watercourses, down which tumultuous 
streams rioted their foamy way. And nestled amid this, 
like a precious stone in its massive setting, a few hun- 
dred acres of level, grassy turf dotted with trees. 
Southward opened a narrow valley, as if pointing the 
road to a less rigorous land. No, she could not deny 
its beauty. But she was far too trail weary to appre- 
ciate the grandeur of the Klappan Range. She desired 
nothing so much as rest and comfort, and the solemn 
mountains were neither restful nor soothing. They 
stood too grim and aloof in a lonely land. 

There was so much to be done, work of the hands ; a 
cabin to build, and a stable ; hay to be cut and stacked 
so that their horses might live through the long winter 
— which already heralded his approach with sharp, 
stinging frosts at night, and flurries of snow along the 
higher ridges. 

Bill staked the tent beside the spring, fashioned a 
rude fork out of a pronged willow, and fitted a handle 
to the scythe he had brought for the purpose. From 
dawn to dark he swung the keen blade in the heavy 
grass which carpeted the bottom. Behind him Hazel 


FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF 


205 


piled it in little mounds with the fork. She insisted on 
this, though it blistered her hands and brought furious 
pains to her back. If her man must strain every nerve 
she would lighten the burden with what strength she 
had. And with two pair of hands to the task, the piles 
of hay gathered thick on the meadow. When Bill 
judged that the supply reached twenty tons, he built a 
rude sled with a rack on it, and hauled in the hay with 
a saddle horse. 

“ Amen ! ” said Bill, when he had emptied the rack for 
the last time, and the hay rose in a neat stack. 
“ That’s another load off my mind. I can build a cabin 
and a stable in six feet of snow if I have to, but there 
would have been a slim chance of haying once a storm 
hit us. And the caballos need a grubstake for the win- 
ter worse than we do, because they can’t eat meat. 
We wouldn’t go hungry — there’s moose enough to 
feed an army ranging in that low ground to the 
south.” 

“ There’s everything that one needs, almost, in the 
wilderness, isn’t there? ” Hazel observed reflectively. 
“ But still the law of life is awfully harsh, don’t you 
think. Bill? Isolation is a terrible thing when it is so 
absolutely complete. Suppose something went wrong? 
There’s no help, and no mercy — absolutely none. 
You could die here by inches and the woods and moun- 
tains would look calmly on, just as they have looked on 
everything for thousands of years. It’s like prison 
regulations. You must do this, and you must do that, 
and there’s no excuse for mistakes. Nature, when you 
get close to her, is so inexorable.” 


206 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Bill eyed her a second. Then he put his arms around 
her, and patted her hair tenderly. 

‘‘ Is it getting on your nerves already, little person ? ” 
he asked. “ Nothing’s going to go wrong. I’ve been 
in wild country too often to make mistakes or get care- 
less. And those are the two crimes for which the North 
— or any wilderness — inflicts rather serious penalties. 
Life isn’t a bit harsher here than in the human ant heaps. 
Only everything is more direct; cause and effect are 
linked up close. There are no complexities. It’s all 
done in the open, and if you don’t play the game ac- 
cording to the few simple rules you go down and out. 
That’s all there is to it. There’s no doctor in the next 
block, nor a grocer to take your order over the phone, 
and you can’t run out to a cafe and take dinner with a 
friend. But neither is the air swarming with disease 
germs, nor are there malicious gossips to blast you with 
their tongues, nor rent and taxes to pay every time 
you turn around. Nor am I at the mercy of a job. 
And what does the old, settled country do to you when 
you have neither money nor job? It treats you worse 
than the worst the North can do; for, lacking the price, 
it denies you access to the abundance that mocks you in 
every shop window, and bars you out of the houses that 
line the streets. Here, everything needful is yours 
for the taking. If one is ignorant, or unable to con- 
vert wood and water and game to his own uses, he 
must learn how, or pay the penalty of incompetence. 
No, little person, I don’t think the law of life is nearly 
so harsh here as it is where the mob struggles for its 
daily bread. It’s more open and aboveboard here; 


FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF 207 

more up to the individual. But it’s lonely sometimes. 
I guess that’s what ails you.” 

“ Oh, pouf ! ” she denied. “ I’m not lonely, so long 
as I’ve got you. But sometimes I think of something 
happening to you — sickness and accidents, and all 
that. One can’t help thinking what might happen.” 

“Forget it!” Bill exhorted. “That’s the worst of 
living in this big, still country — it makes one intro- 
spective, and so confoundedly conscious of what puny 
atoms we human beings are, after all. But there’s 
less chance of sickness here than any place. Anyway, 
we’ve got to take a chance on things now and then, in 
the course of living our lives according to our lights. 
We’re playing for a stake — and things that are worth 
having are never handed to us on a silver salver. Be- 
sides, I never had worse than a stomachache in my life 
— and you’re a pretty healthy specimen yourself. 
Wait till I get that cabin built, with a big fireplace at 
one end. We’ll be more comfortable, and things will 
look a little rosier. This thing of everlasting hurry 
and hard work gets on anybody’s nerves.” 

The best of the afternoon was still unspent when 
the haystacking terminated, and Bill declared a holi- 
day. He rigged a line on a limber willow wand, and 
with a fragment of venison for bait sought the pools 
of the stream which flowed out the south opening. He 
prophesied that in certain black eddies plump trout 
would be lurking, and he made his prophecy good at 
the first pool. Hazel elected herself gun-bearer to 
the expedition, but before long Bill took up that of- 
fice while she snared trout after trout from the stream 


208 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


— having become something of an angler herself un- 
der Bill’s schooling. And when they were frying the 
fish that evening he suddenly observed: 

“ Say, they were game little fellows, these, weren’t 
they.? Wasn’t that better sport than taking a street 
car out to the park and feeding the swans? ” 

“ What an idea ! ” she laughed. “ Who wants to 
feed swans in a park?” 

But when the fire had sunk to dull embers, and the 
stars were peeping shyly in the open flap of their tent, 
she whispered in his ear: 

“ You mustn’t think I’m complaining or lonesome 
or anything. Billy-boy, when I make remarks like I 
did to-day. I love you a heap, and I’d be happy any- 
where with you. And I’m really and truly at home in 
the wilderness. Only — only sometimes I have a funny 
feeling; as if I were afraid. It seems silly, but this 
is all so different from our little cabin. I look up at 
these big mountains, and they seem to be scowling — 
as if we were trespassers or something.” 

“ I know.” Bill drew her close to him. But 
that’s just mood. I’ve felt that same sensation up 
here — a foolish, indefinable foreboding. All the out- 
of-the-way places of the earth produce that effect, if 
one is at all imaginative. It’s the bigness of every- 
thing, and the eternal stillness. I’ve caught myself 
listening — when I knew there was nothing to hear. 
Makes a fellow feel like a small boy left by himself in 
some big, gloomy building — awesome. Sure, I know 
it. It would be hard on the nerves to live here al- 
ways. But we’re only after a stake — then all the 


FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF 


209 


pleasant places of the earth are open to us ; with that 
little, old log house up by Pine River for a refuge 
whenever we get tired of the world at large. Cuddle 
up and go to sleep. You’re a dead-game sport, or 
you’d have hollered long ago.” 

And, next day, to Hazel, sitting by watching him 
swing the heavy, double-bitted ax on the foundation 
logs of their winter home, it all seemed foolish, that 
heaviness of heart which sometimes assailed her. She 
was perfectly happy. In each of them the good, red 
blood of youth ran full and strong, offering ample se- 
curity against illness. They had plenty of food. In 
a few brief months Bill would wrest a sack of gold from 
the treasure house of the North, and they would jour- 
ney home by easy stages. Why should she brood.'* 
It was sheer folly — a mere ebb of spirit. 

Fortune favored them to the extent of letting the 
October storms remain in abeyance until Bill finished 
his cabin, with a cavernous fireplace of rough stone 
at one end. He split planks for a door out of raw 
timber, and graced his house with two windows — one 
of four small panes of glass carefully packed in their 
bedding all the way from Hazleton, the other a two- 
foot square of deerskin scraped parchment thin ; 
opaque to the vision, it still permitted light to enter. 
The floor was plain earth, a condition Bill promised 
to remedy with hides of moose, once his buildings were 
completed. Rudely finished, and lacking much that 
would have made for comfort, stiU it served its pur- 
pose, and Hazel made shift contentedly. 

Followed then the erection of a stable to shelter the 


210 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


horses. Midway of its construction a cloud bank blew 
out of the northeast, and a foot of snow fell. Then 
it cleared to brilliant days of frost. Bill finished his 
stable. At night he tied the horses therein. By day 
they were turned loose to rustle their fodder from un- 
der the crisp snow. It was necessary to husband the 
stock of hay, for spring might be late. 

After that they went hunting. The third day Bill 
shot two moose in an open glade ten miles afield. It 
took them two more days to haul in the frozen meat on 
a sled. 

“ Looks like one side of a butcher shop,” Bill re- 
marked, viewing the dressed meat where it hung on a 
pole scaffolding beyond reach of the wolves. 

“ It certainly does,” Hazel replied. “ We’ll never 
eat all that.” 

“ Probably not,” he smiled. “ But there’s nothing 
like having plenty. The moose might emigrate, you 
know. I think I’ll add a deer to that lot for variety 
— if I can find one.” 

He managed this in the next few days, and also 
laid in a stock of frozen trout by the simple expedient 
of locating a large pool, and netting the speckled deni- 
zens thereof through a hole in the ice. 

So their larder was amply supplied. And, as the 
cold rigidly tightened its grip, and succeeding snows 
deepened the white blanket till snowshoes became im- 
perative, Bill began to string out a line of traps. 


CHAPTER XX 


BOEEAS CHANTS HIS LAY 

December winged by, the days succeeding each other 
like glittering panels on a black ground of long, drear 
nights. Christmas came. They mustered up some- 
thing of the holiday spirit, dining gayly off a roast of 
caribou. For the occasion Hazel had saved the last 
half dozen potatoes. With the material at her com- 
mand she evolved a Christmas pudding, serving it with 
brandy sauce. And after satisfying appetites bred of 
a morning tilt with Jack Frost along Bill’s trap line, 
they spent a pleasant hour picturing their next Christ- 
mas. There would be holly and bright lights and 
music — the festival spirit freed of all restraint. 

The new year was born in a wild smother of flying 
snow, which died at dawn to let a pale, heatless sun 
peer tentatively over the southern mountains, his slant- 
ing beams, setting everything aglitter. Frost particles 
vibrated in the air, coruscating diamond dust. Under- 
foot, on the path beaten betwixt house and stable, the 
snow crunched and complained as they walked, and in 
the open where the mad winds had piled it in hard, 
white windrows. But in the thick woods it lay as it 
had fallen, full five foot deep, a downy wrapping for 
the slumbering earth, over which Bill Wagstaff flitted 
on his snowshoes as silently as a ghost — a fur-clad 


212 


NOPTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


ghost, however, who bore a rifle on his shoulder, and 
whose breath exhaled in white, steamy puffs. 

Gold or no gold, the wild land was giving up its 
treasure to them. Already the catch of furs totaled 
ninety marten, a few mink, a dozen wolves — and two 
pelts of that rara avis, the silver fox. Around twelve 
hundred dollars. Bill estimated, with four months yet 
to trap. And the labor of tending the trap lines, of 
skinning and stretching the catch, served to keep them 
both occupied — Hazel as much as he, for she went 
out with him on all but the hardest trips. So that 
their isolation in the hushed, white world where the 
frost ruled with an iron hand had not so far become 
oppressive. They were too busy to develop that dour 
affliction of the spirit which loneliness and idleness 
breed through the long winters of the North. 

A day or two after the first of the year Roaring Bill 
set out to go over one of the uttermost trap lines. 
Five minutes after closing the door he was back. 

“ Easy with that fire, little person,” he cautioned. 
“ She’s blowing out of the northwest again. The 
sparks are sailing pretty high. Keep your eye on it. 
Hazel.” 

‘‘ All right, Billum,” she replied. I’ll be care- 
ful.” 

Not more than fifty yards separated the house and 
stable. At the stable end stood the stack of hay, a 
low hummock above the surrounding drift. Except 
for the place where Bill daily removed the supply for 
his horses there was not much foothold for a spark, 
since a thin coat of snow overlaid the greater part of 


BOREAS CHANTS HIS LAY 


213 


the top. But there was that chance of catastrophe. 
The chimney of their fireplace yawned wide to the sky, 
vomiting sparks and ash like a miniature volcano when 
the fire was roughly stirred, or an extra heavy supply 
of dry wood laid on. When the wind whistled out of the 
northwest the line of flight was fair over the stack. It 
behooved them to watch wind and fire. By keeping a 
bed of coals and laying on a stick or two at a time a 
gale might roar across the chimney-top without sucking 
forth a spark large enough to ignite the hay. Hence 
Bill’s warning. He had spoken of it before. 

Hazel washed up her breakfast dishes, and set the 
cabin in order according to her housewifely instincts. 
Then she curled up in the chair which Bill had pains- 
takingly constructed for her especial comfort with only 
ax and knife for tools. She was working up a pair 
of moccasins after an Indian pattern, and she grew 
wholly absorbed in the task, drawing stitch after stitch 
of sinew strongly and neatly into place. The hours 
flicked past in unseemly haste, so completely was she 
engrossed. When at length the soreness of her fingers 
warned her that she had been at work a long time, she 
looked at her watch. 

“ Goodness me ! Bill’s due home any time, and I 
haven’t a thing ready to eat,” she exclaimed. And 
here’s my fire nearly out.” 

She piled on wood, and stirring the coals under it, 
fanned them with her husband’s old felt hat, forgetful 
of sparks or aught but that she should be cooking 
against his hungry arrival. Outside, the wind blew 
lustily, driving the loose snow across the open in long. 


214 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


wavering ribbons. But she had forgotten that it was 
in the dangerous quarter, and she did not recall that 
important fact even when she sat down again to watch 
her moose steaks broil on the glowing coals raked apart 
from the leaping blaze. The flames licked into the 
throat of the chimney with the purr of a giant cat. 

No sixth sense warned her of impending calamity. 
It burst upon her with startling abruptness only when 
she opened the door to throw out some scraps of dis- 
carded meat, for the blaze of the burning stack shot 
thirty feet in the air, and the smoke rolled across the 
meadow in a sooty manner. 

Bareheaded, in a thin pair of moccasins, without 
coat or mittens to fend her from the lance-toothed 
frost, Hazel ran to the stable. She could get the 
horses out, perhaps, before the log walls became their 
crematory. But Bill, coming in from his traps, 
reached the stable first, and there was nothing for her 
to do but stand and watch with a sickening self-re- 
proach. He untied and clubbed the reluctant horses 
outside. Already the stable end against the hay was 
shooting up tongues of flame. As the blaze lapped 
swiftly over the roof and ate into the walls, the horses 
struggled through the deep drift, lunging desperately 
to gain a few yards, then turned to stand with ears 
pricked up at the strange sight, shivering in the bitter 
northwest wind that assailed their bare, unprotected 
bodies. 

Bill himself drew back from the fire, and stared at it 
fixedly. He kept silence until Hazel timidly put her 
hand on his arm. 


BOREAS CHANTS HIS LAY 215 

“You watched that fire all right, didn’t you?” he 
said then. 

“ Bill, Bill ! ” she cried. But he merely shrugged 
his shoulders, and kept his gaze fixed on the burning 
stable. 

To Hazel, shivering with the cold, even close as she 
was to the intense heat, it seemed an incredibly short 
time till a glowing mound below the snow level was all 
that remained; a black-edged pit that belched smoke 
and sparks. That and five horses humped tail to the 
driving wind, stolidly enduring. She shuddered with 
something besides the cold. And then Bill spoke ab- 
sently, his eyes still on the smoldering heap. 

“ Five feet of caked snow on top of every blade of 
grass,” she heard him mutter. “ They can’t browse 
on trees, like deer. Aw, hell ! ” 

He had stuck his rifle butt first in the snow. He 
walked over to it ; Hazel followed. When he stood, 
with the rifle slung in the crook of his arm, she tried 
again to break through this silent aloofness which cut 
her more deeply than any harshness of speech could 
have done. 

“ Bill, I’m so sorry 1 ” she pleaded. “ It’s terrible, 
I know. What can we do ? ” 

“Do? Huh!” he snorted. “If I ever have to die 
before my time, I hope it will be with a full belly and 
my head in the air — and mercifully swift.” 

Even then she had no clear idea of his intention. 
She looked up at him pleadingly, but he was staring at 
the horses, his teeth biting nervously at his under lip. 
Suddenly he blinked, and she saw his eyes moisten. In 


2i6 north of fifty-three 

the same instant he threw up the rifle. At the thin, 
vicious crack of it, Silk collapsed. 

She understood then. With her hand pressed hard 
over her mouth to keep back the hysterical scream that 
threatened, she fled to the house. Behind her the rifle 
spat forth its staccato message of death. For a few 
seconds the mountains flung whiplike echoes back and 
forth in a volley. Then the sibilant voice of the wind 
alone broke the stillness. 

Numbed with the cold, terrified at the elemental ruth- 
lessness of it all, she threw herself on the bed, denied 
even the relief of tears. Dry-eyed and heavy-hearted, 
she waited her husband’s coming, and dreading it — 
for the first time she had seen her Bill look on her with 
cold, critical anger. For an interminable time she lay 
listening for the click of the latch, every nerve strung 
tight. 

He came at last, and the thump of his rifle as he 
stood it against the wall had no more than sounded be- 
fore he was bending over her. He sat down on the 
edge of the bed, and putting his arm across her shoul- 
ders, turned her gently so that she faced him. 

“ Never mind, little person,” he whispered. “ It’s 
done and over. I’m sorry I slashed at you the way I 
did. That’s a fool man’s way — if he’s hurt and sore 
he always has to jump on somebody else.” 

Then by some queer complexity of her woman’s na- 
ture the tears forced their way. She did not want to 
cry — only the weak and mushy-minded wept. She 
had always fought back tears unless she was shaken to 
the roots of her soul. But it was almost a relief to 


BOREAS CHANTS HIS LAY 


217 


cry with Bill’s arm holding her close. And it was 
brief. She sat up beside him presently. He held her 
hand tucked in between his own two palms, but he 
looked wistfully at the window, as if he were seeing 
what lay beyond. 

‘‘ Poor, dumb devils ! ” he murmured. I feel like 
a murderer. But it was pure mercy to them. They 
won’t suffer the agony of frost, nor the slow pain of 
starvation. That’s what it amounted to — they’d 
starve if they didn’t freeze first. I’ve known men I 
would rather have shot. I bucked many a hard old trail 
with Silk and Satin. Poor, dumb devils ! ” 

“ D-don’t, Bill ! ” she cried forlornly. “ I know it’s 
my fault. I let the fire almost go out, and then built 
it up big without thinking. And I know being sorry 
doesn’t make any difference. But please — I don’t 
want to be miserable over it. I’ll never be care- 
less again.” 

“ All right ; I won’t talk about it, hon,” he said. “ I 
don’t think you will ever be careless about such things 
again. The North won’t let us get away with it. The 
wilderness is bigger than we are, and it’s merciless if 
we make mistakes.” 

“ I see that.” She shuddered Involuntarily. “ It’s 
a grim country. It frightens me.” 

“ Don’t let it,” he said tenderly. ‘‘ So long as we 
have our health and strength we can win out, and be 
stronger for the experience. Winter’s a tough prop- 
osition up here, but you want to fight shy of morbid 
brooding over things that can’t be helped. This ever- 
lasting frost and snow will be gone by and by. It’ll 


2I8 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


be spring. And everything looks different when there’s 
green grass and flowers, and the sun is warm. Buck 
up, old girl — Bill’s still on the job.” 

“ How can you prospect in the spring without horses 
to pack the outfit ” she asked, after a little. “ How 
can we get out of here with all the stuff we’ll have ? ” 
We’ll manage it,” he assured lightly. “ We’ll get 
out with our furs and gold, all right, and we won’t go 
hungry on the way, even if we have no pack train. 
Leave it to me.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


JACK FROST WITHDRAWS 

All through the month of January each evening, as 
dusk folded its somber mantle about the meadow, the 
wolves gathered to feast on the dead horses, till Hazel’s 
nerves were strained to the snapping point. Contin- 
ually she was reminded of that vivid episode, of which 
she had been the unwitting cause. Sometimes she would 
open the door, and from out the dark would arise the 
sound of wolfish quarrels over the feast, disembodied 
snappings and snarlings. Or when the low-swimming 
moon shed a misty glimmer on the open she would peer 
through a thawed place on the window-pane, and see 
gray shapes circling about the half-picked skeletons. 
Sometimes, when Bill was gone, and all about the cabin 
was utterly still, one, bolder or hungrier than his fel- 
lows, would trot across the meadow, drawn by the scent 
of the meat. Two or three of these Hazel shot with 
her own rifie. 

But when February marked another span on the cal- 
endar the wolves came no more. The bones were clean. 

There was no impending misfortune or danger that 
she could point to or forecast with certitude. Never- 
theless, struggle against it as she might, knowing it 
for pure psychological phenomena arising out of her 
harsh environment. Hazel suflTered continual vague 


220 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


forebodings. The bald, white peaks seemed to sur- 
round her like a prison from which there could be no 
release. From day to day she was harassed by dismal 
thoughts. She would wake in the night clutching at 
her husband. Such days as he went out alone she 
passed in restless anxiety. Something would happen. 
What it would be she did not know, but to her it seemed 
that the bleak stage was set for untoward drama, and 
they two the puppets that must play. 

She strove against this impression with cold logic; 
but reason availed nothing against the feeling that the 
North had but to stretch forth its mighty hand and 
crush them utterly. But all of this she concealed from 
Bill. She was ashamed of her fears, the groundless 
uneasiness. Yet it was a constant factor in her daily 
life, and it sapped her vitality as surely and steadily 
as lack of bodily nourishment could have done. 

Had there been in her make-up any inherent weak- 
ness of mentality. Hazel might perhaps have brooded 
herself into neurasthenia. Few save those who have 
actually experienced complete isolation for extended 
periods can realize the queer, warped outlook such an 
existence imposes on the human mind, if that mind is a 
trifle more than normally sensitive to impressions, and 
a nature essentially social both by inclination and habit. 
In the first months of their marriage she had assured 
herself and him repeatedly that she could be perfectly 
happy and contented any place on earth with Bill 
WagstaflP. 

Emotion has blinded wiser folk, and perhaps that is 
merely a little device of nature’s, for if one could look 


JACK FROST WITHDRAWS 


221 


into the future with too great a clarity of vision there 
would be fewer matings. In the main her declaration 
still held true. She loved her husband with the same 
intensity ; possibly even more, for she had found in him 
none of the flaws which every woman dreads that 
time and association may bring to light in her chosen 
mate. 

When Bill drew her up close in his arms, the in- 
tangible menace of the wilderness and all the dreary 
monotony of the days faded into the background. But 
they, no more than others who have tried and failed for 
lack of understanding, could not live their lives with 
their heads in an emotional cloud. For every action 
there must be a corresponding reaction. They who have 
the capacity to reach the heights must likewise, upon oc- 
casion, plumb the depths. Life, she began to realize, 
resolved itself into an unending succession of little, 
trivial things, with here and there some great event 
looming out above all the rest for its bestowal of hap- 
piness or pain. 

Bill knew. He often talked about such things. 
She was beginning to understand that he had a far 
more comprehensive grasp of the fundamentals of ex- 
istence that she had. He had explained to her that 
the individual unit was nothing outside of his group 
affiliations, and she applied that to herself in a prac- 
tical way in an endeavor to analyze herself. She was 
a group product, and only under group conditions 
could her life flow along nonirritant lines. Such be- 
ing the case, it followed that if Bill persisted in living 
out of the world they would eventually drift apart, in 


222 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


spirit if not in actuality. And that was an absurd 
summing-up. 

She rejected the conclusion decisively. For was not 
their present situation the net result of a concrete en- 
deavor to strike a balance between the best of what 
both the wilderness and the humming cities had to offer 
them.^ It seemed treason to Bill to long for other 
voices and other faces. Yet she could not help the 
feeling. She wondered if he, too, did not sometimes 
long for company besides her own. And the thought 
stirred up a perverse jealousy. They two, perfectly 
mated in all things, should be able to make their own 
little world complete — but they could not, she knew. 
Life was altogether too complex an affair to be solved 
in so primitive a fashion. She felt that continued liv- 
ing under such conditions would drive her mad; that 
if she stayed long enough under the somber shadow of 
the Klappan Range she would hate the North and all 
it contained. 

That would have been both unjust and absurd, so 
she set herself resolutely to overcome that feeling of 
oppression. She was too well-balanced to drift unwit- 
tingly along this perilous road of thought. She 
schooled herself to endure and to fight off introspec- 
tion. She had absorbed enough of her husband’s 
sturdy philosophy of life to try and make the best of 
a bad job. After all, she frequently assured herself, 
the badness of the job was mostly a state of mind. 
And she had a growing conviction that Bill sensed the 
struggle, and that it hurt him. For that reason, 
if for no other, she did her best to make light of the 


JACK FROST WITHDRAWS 223 


grim environment, and to wait patiently for spring. 

February and March stormed a path furiously 
across the calendar. Higher and higher the drifts 
piled about the cabin, till at length it was banked to 
the eaves with snow save where Bill shoveled it away to 
let light to the windows. Day after day they kept in- 
doors, stoking up the fire, listening to the triumphant 
whoop of the winds. 

“ Snow, snow ! ” Hazel burst out one day. “ Frost 
that cuts you like a knife. I wonder if there’s ever 
going to be an end to it? I wish we were home again 
— or some place.” 

“ So do I, little person,” Bill said gently. “ But 
spring’s almost at the door. Hang on a little longer. 
We’ve made a fair stake, anyway, if we don’t wash an 
ounce of gold.” 

Hazel let her gaze wander over the pelts hanging 
thick from ridge log and wall. Bill had fared well 
at his trapping. Over two thousand dollars he esti- 
mated the value of his catch. 

“ How are we going to get it all out? ” She voiced 
a troublesome thought. 

“ Shoulder pack to the Skeena,” he answered la- 
conically. ‘‘ Build a dugout there, and float down- 
stream. Portage the rapids as they come.” 

“ Oh, Bill ! ” she came and leaned her head against 
him contritely. ‘‘ Our poor ponies ! And it was all 
my carelessness.” 

“ Never mind, hon,” he comforted. “ They blinked 
out without suffering. And we’ll make it like a charm. 
Be game — it’ll soon be spring.” 


224 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


As if in verification of his words, with the last breath 
of that howling storm came a sudden softening of the 
atmosphere. The sharp teeth of the frost became 
swiftly blunted, and the sun, swinging daily in a wider 
arc, brought the battery of his rays into effective play 
on the mountainsides. The drifts lessened, shrunk, be- 
came moisture sodden. For ten days or more the 
gradual thaw increased. Then a lusty-lunged chinook 
wind came booming up along the Klappan Range, and 
stripped it to a bare, steaming heap. Overhead 
whistled the first flight of the wild goose, bound for 
the nesting grounds. Night and day the roar of a 
dozen cataracts droned on all sides of the basin, as the 
melting snow poured down in the annual spring flood. 

By April the twentieth the abdication of Jack Frost 
was complete. A kindlier despot ruled the land, and 
Bill Wagstaff began to talk of gold. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE STRIKE 

. . that precious yellow metal sought by men 
In regions desolate. 

Pursued in patient hope or furious toil; 

Breeder of discord, wars, and murderous hate; 

The victor’s spoil.” 

So Hazel quoted, leaning over her husband’s shoul- 
der. In the bottom of his pan, shining among a film 
of black sand, lay half a dozen bright specks, varying 
from pin-point size to the bigness of a grain of wheat. 

‘‘ That’s the stuff,” Bill murmured. “ Only it seems 
rather far-fetched for your poet to blame inanimate 
matter for the cussedness of humanity in general. I 
suppose, though, he thought he was striking a highly 
dramatic note. Anyway, it looks as if we’d struck it 
pretty fair. It’s time, too — the June rise will hit 
us like a whirlwind one of these days.” 

“ About what is the value of those little pieces ? ” 
Hazel asked. 

“ Oh, fifty or sixty cents,” he answered. “ Not much 
by itself. But it seems to be uniform over the bar — 
and I can wash a good many pans in a day’s work.” 

“ I should think so,” she remarked. It didn’t take 
you ten minutes to do that one.” 

“Whitey Lewis and I took out over two hundred 


226 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


dollars a day on that other creek last spring — no, a 
year last spring, it was,” he observed reminiscently. 
“ This isn’t as good, but it’s not to be sneezed at, either. 
I think I’ll make me a rocker. I’ve sampled this bend 
quite a lot, and I don’t think I can do any better than 
fly at this while the water stays low.” 

“ I can help, can’t I ? ” she said eagerly. 

“ Sure,” he smiled. “ You help a lot, little person, 
just sitting around keeping me company.” 

“ But I want to work,” she declared. “ I’ve sat 
around now till I’m getting the fidgets.” 

All right ; I’ll give you a j ob,” he returned good- 
naturedly. “ Meantime, let’s eat that lunch you 
packed up here.” 

In a branch of the creek which flowed down through 
the basin. Bill had found plentiful colors as soon as 
the first big run-ofF of water had fallen. He had fol- 
lowed upstream painstakingly, panning colors always, 
and now and then a few grains of coarse gold to en- 
courage him in the quest. The loss of their horses 
precluded ranging far afield to that other glacial 
stream which he had worked with Whitey Lewis when 
he was a free lance in the North. He was close to his 
base of supplies, and he had made wages — with always 
the prospector’s lure of a rich strike on the next bar. 

And now, with May well advanced, he had found def- 
inite indications of good pay dirt. The creek swung 
in a hairpin curve, and in the neck between the two 
sides of the loop the gold was sifted through wash 
gravel and black sand, piled there by God only 
knew how many centuries of glacial drift and flood. 


THE STRIKE 


227 


But it was there. He had taken panfuls at random 
over the bar, and uniformly it gave up coarse gold. 
With a rocker he stood a fair chance of big money be- 
fore the June rise. 

‘‘ In the morning,” said he, when lunch was over, 
“ I’ll bring along the ax and some nails and a shovel, 
and get busy.” 

That night they trudged down to the cabin in high 
spirits. Bill had washed out enough during the after- 
noon to make a respectable showing on Hazel’s out- 
spread handkerchief. And Hazel was in a gleeful 
mood over the fact that she had unearthed a big nug- 
get by herself. Beginner’s luck. Bill said teasingly, 
but that did not diminish her elation. The old, ad- 
venturous glamour, which the long winter and moods of 
depression had worn threadbare, began to cast its pleas- 
ant spell over her again. The fascination of the gold 
hunt gripped her. Not for the stuff itself, but for 
what it would get. She wondered if the men who 
dared the impassive solitudes of the North for weary, 
lonesome years saw in every morsel of the gold they 
found a picture of what that gold would buy them in 
kindlier lands. And some never found any, never won 
the stake that would justify the gamble. It was a 
gamble, in a sense — a pure game of chance ; but a 
game that took strength, and nerve, a sturdy soul, to 
play. 

Still, the gold was there, locked up in divers storing 
places in the lap of the earth, awaiting those virile 
enough to find and take. And out beyond, in the 
crowded places of the earth, were innumerable gate- 


228 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


ways to comfort and pleasure which could be opened 
with gold. It remained only to balance the one against 
the other. Just as she had often planned according 
to her opportunities when she was a wage slave in 
the office of Bush and Company, so now did she plan 
for the future on a broader scale, now that the North 
promised to open its treasure vault to them — an at- 
titude which Bill Wagstaff encouraged and abetted in 
his own whimsical fashion. There was nothing too 
good for them, he sometimes observed, provided it could 
be got. But there was one profound difference in their 
respective temperaments, Hazel sometimes reflected. 
Bill would shrug his wide shoulders, and forget or forego 
the unattainable, where she would chafe and fume. 
She was quite positive of this. 

But as the days passed there seemed no question of 
their complete success. Bill fabricated his rocker, a 
primitive, boxlike device with a blanket screen and 
transverse slats below. It was faster than the pan, 
even rude as it was, and it caught all but the finer par- 
ticles of gold. Hazel helped operate the rocker, and 
took her turn at shoveling or filling the box with water 
while Bill rocked. Each day’s end sent her to her bed 
healthily tired, but happily conscious that she had 
helped to accomplish something. 

A queer twist of luck put the cap-sheaf on their un- 
dertaking. Hazel ran a splinter of wood into her 
hand, thus putting a stop to her activities with shovel 
and pail. Until the wound lost its soreness she was 
forced to sit idle. She could watch Bill ply his rocker 
while she fought flies on the bank. This grew tire- 


THE STRIKE 


229 


some, particularly since she had the sense to realize 
that a man who works with sweat streaming down his 
face and a mind wholly absorbed in the immediate task 
has no desire to be bothered with inconsequential chat- 
ter. So she rambled along the creek one afternoon, 
armed with hook and line on a pliant willow in search 
of sport. 

The trout were hungry, and struck fiercely at the 
bait. She soon had plenty for supper and breakfast. 
Wherefore she abandoned that diversion, and took to 
prying tentatively in the lee of certain bowlders on 
the edge of the creek — prospecting on her own initia- 
tive, as it were. She had no pan, and only one hand 
to work with, but she knew gold when she saw it — and, 
after all, it was but an idle method of killing time. 

She noticed behind each rock and in every shallow, 
sheltered place in the stream a plentiful gathering of 
tiny red stones. They were of a pale, ruby cast, and 
mostly flawed; dainty trifles, translucent and full of 
light when she held them to the sun. She began a 
search for a larger specimen. It might mount nicely 
into a stickpin for Bill, she thought; a memento of the 
Klappan Range. 

And in this search she came upon a large, rusty 
pebble, snuggled on the downstream side of an over- 
hanging rock right at the water’s edge. It attracted 
her first by its symmetrical form, a perfect oval; then, 
when she lifted it, by its astonishing weight. She con- 
tinued her search for the pinkish-red stones, carrying 
the rusty pebble along. Presently she worked her way 
back to where Roaring Bill labored prodigiously. 


230 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ I feel ashamed to be loafing while you work so 
hard, Billy-boy,” she greeted. 

“ Give me a kiss and I’ll call it square,” he proposed 
cheerfully. “ Got to work like a beaver, kid. This 
hot weather’ll put us to the bad before long. There’ll 
be ten feet of water roaring down here one of these 
days.” 

“ Look at these pretty stones I found,” she said. 
“What are they. Bill.? ” 

“ Those ? ” He looked at her outstretched palm. 
“ Garnets.” 

“ Garnets ? They must be valuable, then,” she ob- 
served. “ The creek’s full of them.” 

“ Valuable I should say so,” he grinned. “I sent 
a sample to a Chicago firm once. They replied to the 
effect that they would take all I could deliver, and pay 
thirty-six dollars a ton, f. o. b., my nearest railroad 
station.” 

“ Oh ! ” she protested. “ But they’re pretty.” 

“ Yes, if you can find one of any size. What’s the 
other rock.?’ ” he inquired casually. “You making a 
collection of specimens.? ” 

“ That’s just a funny stone I found,” she returned. 
“ It must be iron or something. It’s terribly heavy 
for its size.” 

“ Eh.? Let me see it,” he said. 

She handed it over. 

He weighed it in his palm, scrutinized it closely, 
turning it over and over. Then he took out his knife 
and scratched the rusty surface vigorously for a few 
minutes. 


THE STRIKE 


231 


Huh ! ” he grunted. “ Look at your funny 
stone.” 

He held it out for her inspection. The hlade of his 
knife had left a dull, yellow scar. 

“ Oh ! ” she gasped. “ Why — it’s gold ! ” 

“ It is, woman,” he declaimed, with mock solemnity. 
“ Gold — glittering gold ! 

Say, where did you find this ? ” he asked, when 
Hazel stared at the nugget, dumb in the face of this 
unexpected stroke of fortune. 

“ Just around the second bend,” she cried. “ Oh, 
Bill, do you suppose there’s any more there.? ” 

“ Lead me to it with my trusty pan and shovel, and 
we’ll see,” Bill smiled. 

Forthwith they set out. The overhanging bowlder 
was a scant ten minute’s walk up the creek. 

Bill leaned on his shovel, and studied the ground. 
Then, getting down on his knees at the spot where 
the marks of Hazel’s scratching showed plain enough, 
he began to paw over the gravel. 

Within five minutes his fingers brought to light a 
second lump, double the size of her find. Close upon 
that he winnowed a third. Hazel leaned over him, 
breathless. He sifted the gravel and sand through his 
fingers slowly, picking out and examining all that 
might be the precious metal, and as he picked and 
clawed the rusty, brown nuggets came to light. At 
last he reached bottom. The bowlder thrust out be- 
low in a natural shelf. From this Bill carefully scraped 
the accumulation of black sand and gravel, gleaning as 
a result of his labor a baker’s dozen of assorted chunks 


232 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


— one giant that must have weighed three pounds. 
He sat back on his haunches, and looked at his wife, 
speechless. 

“ Is that truly all gold. Bill? ” she whispered incredu- 
lously. 

‘‘ It certainly is — as good gold as ever went into 
the mint,” he assured. “ All laid in a nice little nest 
on this shelf of rock. I’ve heard of such things up in 
this country, but I never ran into one before — and 
I’ve always taken this pocket theory with a grain of 
salt. But there you are. That’s a real, honest-to- 
God pocket. And a well-lined one, if you ask me. 
This rusty-colored outside is oxidized iron — from 
the black sand, I guess. Still, it might be something 
else. But I know what the inside is, all right, all 
right.” 

“ My goodness ! ” she murmured. “ There might be 
wagonloads of it in this creek.” 

“ There might, but it isn’t likely.” Bill shook his 
head. “ This is a simon-pure pocket, and it would 
keep a graduate mineralogist guessing to say how it 
got here, because it’s a different proposition from the 
wash gold in the creek bed. I’ve got all that’s here, I’m 
pretty sure. And you might prospect this creek from 
end to end and never find another nugget bigger than 
a pea. It’s rich placer ground, at that — but this 
pocket’s almost unbelievable. Must be forty pounds 
of gold there. And you found it. You’re the original 
mascot, little person.” 

He bestowed a bearlike hug upon her. 

“ Now what? ” she asked. “ It hardly seems real to 


THE STRIKE 


233 


pick up several thousand dollars in half an hour or 
so like this. What will we do ? ” 

“Do? Why, bless your dear soul,” he laughed. 
“ We’ll just consider ourselves extra lucky, and keep 
right on with the game till the high water makes us 
quit.” 

Which was a contingency nearer at hand than even 
Bill, with a firsthand knowledge of the North’s vagaries 
in the way of flood, quite anticipated. 

Three days after the finding of the pocket the whole 
floor of the creek was awash. His rocker went down- 
stream overnight. To the mouth of the canon where 
the branch sought junction with the parent stream 
they could ascend, and no farther. And when Bill 
saw that he rolled himself a cigarette, and, putting one 
long arm across his wife’s shoulders, said whimsically: 

“ What d’you say we start home? ” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE STRESS OF THE TRAIL 

Roaring Bill dumped his second pack on the summit 
of the Klappan, and looked away to where the valley 
that opened out of the basin showed its blurred hollow 
in the distance. But he uttered no useless regrets. 
With horses they could have ridden south through a 
rolling country, where every stretch of timber gave 
on a grass-grown level. Instead they were forced back 
over the rugged route by which they had crossed the 
range the summer before. Grub, bedding, furs, and 
gold totaled two hundred pounds. On his sturdy 
shoulders Bill could pack half that weight. For his 
wife the thing was a physical impossibility, even had 
he permitted her to try. Hence every mile advanced 
meant that he doubled the distance, relaying from one 
camp to the next. They cut their bedding to a blanket 
apiece, and that was Hazel’s load — all he would al- 
low her to carry. 

“ You’re no pack mule, little person,” he would say. 
‘‘ It don’t hurt me. I’ve done this for years.” 

But even with abnormal strength and endurance, it 
was killing work to buck those ragged slopes with a 
heavy load. Only by terrible, unremitting effort 
could he advance any appreciable distance. From day- 
break till noon they would climb and rest alternately. 


THE STRESS OF THE TRAIL 235 

Then, after a meal and a short breathing spell, he 
would go back alone after the second load. They were 
footsore, and their bodies ached with weariness that 
verged on pain when they gained the pass that cut the 
summit of the Klappan Range. 

“ Well, we’re over the hump,” Bill remarked thank- 
fully. “ It’s a downhill shoot to the Skeena. I don’t 
think it’s more than fifty or sixty miles to where we 
can take to the water.” 

They made better time on the western slope, but the 
journey became a matter of sheer endurance. Sum- 
mer was on them in full blaze. The creeks ran full and 
strong. Thunderstorms blew up out of a clear sky to 
deluge them. Food was scanty — flour and salt and 
tea ; with meat and fish got by the way. And the black 
flies and mosquitoes swarmed about them maddeningly 
day and night. 

So they came at last to the Skeena, and Hazel’s 
heart misgave her when she took note of its swirling 
reaches, the sinuous eddies — a deep, swift, treacherous 
stream. But Bill rested overnight, and in the morn- 
ing sought and felled a sizable cedar, and began to hew. 
Slowly the thick trunk shaped itself to the form of a 
boat under the steady swing of his ax. Hazel had seen 
the type in use among the coast Siwashes, twenty-five 
feet in length, narrow-beamed, the sides cut to a half 
inch in thickness, the bottom left heavier to withstand 
scraping over rock, and to keep it on an even keel. A 
rude and tricky craft, but one wholly efficient in ca- 
pable hands. 

In a week it was finished. They loaded the sack of 


236 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

gold, the bundle of furs, their meager camp outfit amid- 
ships, and swung off into the stream. 

The Skeena drops fifteen hundred feet in a hundred 
miles. Wherefore there are rapids, boiling stretches 
of white water in which many a good canoe has come 
to grief. Some of these they ran at imminent peril. 
Over the worst they lined the canoe from the bank. 
One or two short canons they portaged, dragging the 
heavy dugout through the brush by main strength. 
Once they came to a wall-sided gorge that ran away 
beyond any attempt at portage, and they abandoned 
the dugout, to build another at the lower end. But be- 
tween these natural barriers they clicked off the miles 
in hot haste, such was the swiftness of the current. 
And in the second week of July they brought up at the 
head of Kispiox Canon. Hazleton lay a few miles be- 
low. But the Kispiox stayed them, a sluice box cut 
through solid stone, in which the waters raged with a 
deafening roar. No man ventured into that wild 
gorge. They abandoned the dugout. Bill slung the 
sack of gold and the bale of furs on his back. 

“ It’s the last lap. Hazel,” said he. “ We’ll leave 
the rest of it for the first Siwash that happens along.” 

So they set out bravely to trudge the remaining dis- 
tance. And as the fortunes of the trail sometimes be- 
fall, they raised an Indian camp on the bank of the 
river at the mouth of the canon. A ten-dollar bill 
made them possessors of another canoe, and an hour 
later the roofs of Hazleton cropped up above the bank. 

‘‘ Oh, Bill,” Hazel called from the bow. Look ! 
There’s the same old steamer tied to the same old bankc 


THE STRESS OF THE TRAIL 237 


We’ve been gone a year, and yet the world hasn’t 
changed a mite. I wonder if Hazleton has taken a Rip 
van Winkle sleep all this time?” 

‘‘No fear,” he smiled. “ I can see some new houses 
— quite a few, in fact. And look — by Jiminy ! 
They’re working on the grade. That railroad, re- 
member? See all those teams? Maybe I ought to 
have taken up old Hackaberry on that town-lot propo- 
sition, after all.” 

“ Fiddlesticks ! ” she retorted, with fine scorn of 
Hazleton’s real-estate possibilities. “ You could buy 
the whole town with this.” 

She touched the sack with her toe. 

“ Not quite,” Bill returned placidly. “ I wouldn’t, 
anyway. We’ll get a better run for our money than 
that. I hope old Hack didn’t forget to attend to that 
ranch business for me.” 

He drove the canoe alongside a float. A few loungers 
viewed them with frank curiosity. Bill set out the 
treasure sack and the bale of furs, and tied the canoe. 

“ A new hotel, by Jove ! ” he remarked, when upon 
gaining the level of the town a new two-story building 
blazoned with a huge sign its function as a hostelry. 
“ Getting quite metropolitan in this neck of the woods. 
Say, little person, do you think you can relish a square 
meal? Planked steak and lobster salad — huh? I 
wonder if they could rustle a salad in this man’s town? 
Say, do you know I’m just beginning to find out how 
hungry I am for the flesh-pots. What’s the matter 
with a little variety? — as Lin MacLean said. Aren’t 
you, hon ? ” 


238 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


She was ; frankly so. For long, monotonous months 
she had been struggling against just such cravings, 
impossible of realization, and therefore all the more 
tantalizing. She had been a year in the wilderness, 
and the wilderness had not only lost its glamour, but 
had become a thing to flee from. Even the rude motley 
of Hazleton was a welcome change. Here at least — * 
on a minor scale, to be sure — was that which she 
craved, and to which she had been accustomed — life, 
stir, human activity, the very antithesis of the lonely 
mountain fastnesses. She bestowed a glad pressure 
on her husband’s arm as they walked up the street. 
Bill carrying the sack of gold perched carelessly on 
one shoulder. 

“ Say, their enterprise has gone the length of es- 
tablishing a branch bank here, I see.” 

He called her attention to a square-fronted edifice, 
its new-boarded walls as yet guiltless of paint, except 
where a row of black letters set forth that it was the 
Bank of British North America. 

“ That’s a good place to stow this bullion,” he re- 
marked. I want to get it oflf my hands.” 

So to the bank they bent their steps. A solemn, 
horse-faced Englishman weighed the gold, and issued 
Bill a receipt, expressing a polite regret that lack of 
facility to determine its fineness prevented him from 
converting it into cash. 

‘‘ That means a trip to Vancouver,” Bill remarked 
outside. “ Well, we can stand that.” 

From the bank they went to the hotel, registered, 
and were shown to a room. For the first time since the 


THE STRESS OF THE TRAIL 


239 


summit of the Klappan Range, where her tiny hand 
glass had suffered disaster, Hazel was permitted a 
clear view of herself in a mirror. 

“ I’m a perfect fright ! ” she mourned. 

“ Huh ! ” Bill grunted. “ You're all right. Look 
at me.” 

The trail had dealt hardly with both, in the matter 
of their personal appearance. Tanned to an abiding 
brown, they were, and Hazel’s one-time smooth face 
was spotted with fly bites and marked with certain 
scratches suffered in the brush as they skirted the Kis- 
piox. Her hair had lost its sleek, glossy smoothness 
of arrangement. Her hands were reddened and rough. 
But chiefly she was concerned with the sad state of 
her apparel. She had come a matter of four hundred 
miles in the clothes on her back — and they bore un- 
equivocal evidence of the journey. 

“ I’m a perfect fright,” she repeated pettishly. ‘‘ I 
don’t wonder that people lapse into semi-barbarism in 
the backwoods. One’s manners^ morals, clothing, and 
complexion all suffer from too close contact with your 
beloved North, Bill.” 

‘‘ Thanks ! ” he returned shortly. “ I suppose I’m 
a perfect fright, too. Long hair, whiskers, grimy, 
calloused hands, and all the rest of it. A shave and a 
hair cut, a bath and a new suit of clothes will remedy 
that. But I’ll be the same personality in every es- 
sential quality that I was when I sweated over the 
Klappan with a hundred pounds on my back.” 

“ I hope so,” she retorted. “ I don’t require the 
shave, thank goodness, but I certainly need a bath — 


240 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


and clothes. I wish I had the gray suit that’s probably 
getting all moldy and moth-eaten at the Pine River 
cabin. I wonder if I can get anything fit to wear 
here ? ” 

“ Women live here,” Bill returned quietly, “ and I 
suppose the stores supply ’em with duds. Unlimber 
that bank roll of yours, and do some shopping.” 

She sat on the edge of the bed, regarding her reflec- 
tion in the mirror with extreme disfavor. Bill fingered 
his thick stubble of a beard for a thoughtful minute. 
Then he sat down beside her. 

“ Wha’s a mollah, hon ? ” he wheedled. “ What 
makes you such a crosser patch all at once? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” she answered dolefully. I’m 
tired and hungry, and I look a fright — and — oh, just 
everything.” 

“ Tut, tut ! ” he remonstrated good-naturedly. 
“ That’s just mood again. We’re out of the woods, 
literally and figuratively. If you’re hungry, let’s go 
and see what we can make this hotel produce in the 
way of grub, before we do anything else.” 

“ I wouldn’t go into their dining-room looking like 
this for the world,” she said decisively. “ I didn’t 
realize how dirty and shabby I was.” 

“ All right ; you go shopping, then,” he proposed, 
** while I take these furs up to old Hack’s place and 
turn them into money. Then we’ll dress, and make 
this hotel feed us the best they’ve got. Cheer up. 
Maybe it was tough on you to slice a year out of your 
life and leave it in a country where there’s nothing but 
woods and eternal silence — but we’ve got around 


THE STRESS OF THE TRAIL 


241 


twenty thousand dollars to show for it, Hazel. And 
one can’t get something for nothing. There’s a price 
mark on it somewhere, always. We’ve got all our 
lives before us, little person, and a better chance for 
happiness than most folks have. Don’t let little things 
throw you into the blues. Be my good little pal — 
and see if you can’t make one of these stores dig up a 
white waist and a black skirt, like you had on the first 
time I saw you.” 

He kissed her, and went quickly out. And after 
a long time of sober staring at her image in the glass 
Hazel shook herself impatiently. 

“ I’m a silly, selfish, incompetent little beast,” she 
whispered. “ Bill ought to thump me, instead of be- 
ing kind. I can’t do anything, and I don’t know much, 
and I’m a scarecrow for looks right now. And I 
started out to be a real partner.” 

She wiped an errant tear away, and made her way 
to a store — a new place sprung up, like the bank and 
the hotel, with the growing importance of the town. 
The stock of ready-made clothing drove her to de- 
spair. It seemed that what women resided in Hazle- 
ton must invariably dress in Mother Hubbard gowns 
of cheap cotton print with other garments to match. 
But eventually they found for her undergarments of a 
sort, a waist and skirt, and a comfortable pair of shoes. 
Hats, as a milliner would understand the term, there 
were none. And in default of such she stuck to the 
gray felt sombrero she had worn into the Klappan and 
out again — which, in truth, became her very well, 
when tilted at the proper angle above her heavy black 


242 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


hair. Then she went back to the hotel, and sought a 
bathroom. 

Returning from this she found Bill, a Bill all shaved 
and shorn, unloading himself of sundry packages of 
new attire. 

“ Aha, everything is lovely,” he greeted enthusiasti- 
cally. “ Old Hack jumped at the pelts, and paid a 
fat price for the lot. Also the ranch deal has gone 
through. He’s a prince, old Hack. Sent up a man 
and had it surveyed and classified and the deed waiting 
for me. And — oh, say, here’s a letter for you.” 

“For me.'^ Oh, yes,” as she looked at the hand- 
writing and postmark. “ I wrote to Loraine Marsh 
when we were going north. Good heavens, look at the 
date — it’s been here since last September ! ” 

“ Hackaberry knew where we were,” Bill explained. 
“ Sometimes in camps like this they hold mail two or 
three years for men that have gone into the interior.” 

She put aside the letter, and dressed while Bill had 
his bath. Then, with the smoke and grime of a hard 
trail obliterated, and with decent clothes upon them, 
they sought the dining-room. There, while they waited 
to be served. Hazel read Loraine Marsh’s letter, and 
passed it to Bill with a self-conscious little laugh. 

“ There’s an invitation there we might accept,” she 
said casually. 

Bill read. There were certain comments upon her 
marriage, such as the average girl might be expected 
to address to her chum who has forsaken splnsterhood, 
a lot of chatty mention of Granville people and Gran- 
ville happenings, which held no particular interest for 


THE STRESS OF THE TRAIL 


245 

Bill since he knew neither one nor the other, and it 
ended with an apparently sincere hope that Hazel and 
her husband would visit Granville soon as the Marshes’ 
guests. 

He returned the letter as the waitress brought their 
food. 

“Wouldn’t it be nice to take a trip home.?’ ” Hazel 
suggested thoughtfully. “ I’d love to.” 

“We are going home,” Bill reminded gently. 

“ Oh, of course,” she smiled. “ But I mean to 
Granville. I’d like to go back there with you for a 
while, just to — just to — ” 

“To show ’em,” he supplied laconically. 

“ Oh, Bill ! ” she pouted. 

Nevertheless, she could not deny that there was a 
measure of truth in his brief remark. She did want 
to “ show ’em.” Bill’s vernacular expressed it ex- 
actly. She had compassed success in a manner that 
Granville — and especially that portion of Gran- 
ville which she knew and which knew her — could 
appreciate and understand and envy according to its 
individual tendencies. 

She looked across the table at her husband, and 
thought to herself with proud satisfaction that she had 
done well. Viewed from any angle whatsoever. Bill 
Wagstaff stood head and shoulders above all the men 
she had ever known. Big, physically and mentally, 
clean-minded and capable — indubitably she had cap- 
tured a lion, and, though she might have denied 
stoutly the imputation, she wanted Granville to see her 
lion and hear him roar. 


244 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Whether they realize the fact or not, to th^average 
individual, male or female, reflected glory is better 
than none at all. And when two people stand in the 
most intimate relation to each other, the success of 
one lends a measure of its luster to the other. Those 
who had been so readily impressed by Andrew Bush’s 
device to singe her social wings with the flame of gossip 
had long since learned their mistake. She had the 
word of Loraine Marsh and Jack Barrow that they 
were genuinely sorry for having been carried away by 
appearances. And she could nail her colors to the 
mast if she came home the wife of a man like Bill Wag- 
staff, who could wrest a fortune from the wilderness in 
a briefer span of time than it took most men to make 
current expenses. Hazel was quite too human to re- 
fuse a march triumphal if it came her way. She had 
left Granville in bitterness of spirit, and some of that 
bitterness required balm. 

“ Still thinking Granville ? ” Bill queried, when they 
had finished an uncommonly silent meal. 

Hazel flushed slightly. She was, and momentarily 
she felt that she should have been thinking of their 
little nest up by Pine River Pass instead. She knew 
that Bill was homing to the cabin. She herself re- 
garded it with affection, but of a different degree from 
his. Her mind was more occupied with another, more 
palpitating circle of life than was possible at the cabin, 
much as she appreciated its green and peaceful beauty. 
The sack of gold lying in the bank had somehow 
opened up far-flung possibilities. She skipped the in- 
terval of affairs which she knew must be attended to. 


245 


THE STRESS OF THE TRAIL 

and betook herself and Bill to Granville, thence to the 
bigger, older cities, where money shouted in the voice 
of command, where all things were possible to those 
who had the price. 

She had had her fill of the wilderness — for the time 
being, she put it. It loomed behind her — vast, 
bleak, a desolation of loneliness from which she must 
get away. She knew now, beyond peradventure, that 
her heart had brought her back to the man in spite of, 
rather than because of, his environment. And secure 
in the knowledge of his love for her and her love for 
him, she was already beginning to indulge a dream of 
transplanting him permanently to kindlier surround- 
ings, where he would have wider scope for his natural 
ability and she less isolation. 

But she was beginning to know this husband of hers 
too well to propose anything of the sort abruptly. Be- 
hind his tenderness and patience she had sometimes 
glimpsed something inflexible, unyielding as the wilder- 
ness he loved. So she merely answered: 

“ In a way, yes.” 

“ Let’s go outside where I can smoke a decent cigar 
on top of this fairly decent meal,” he suggested. 
“ Then we’ll figure on the next move. I think about 
twenty^four hours in Hazleton will do me. There’s 
a steamer goes down-river to-morrow.” 


CHAPTER XXIVi 


NEIGHBORS 

Four days later they stood on the deck of a grimy 
little steamer breasting the outgoing tide that surged 
through the First Narrows. Wooded banks on either 
hand spread dusky green in the hot August sun. On 
their left glinted the roofs and white walls of Holly- 
burn, dear to the suburban heart. Presently they 
swung around Brockton Point, and Vancouver spread 
its peninsular clutter before them. Tugs and launches 
puffed by, about their harbor traffic. A ferry clustered 
black with people hurried across the inlet. But even 
above the harbor noises, across the intervening distance 
they could hear the vibrant hum of the industrial hive. 

“ Listen to it,” said Bill. ‘‘ Like surf on the beaches. 
And, like the surf, it’s full of treacherous undercur- 
rents, a bad thing to get into unless you can swim 
strong enough to keep your head above water.” 

‘‘ You’re a thoroughgoing pessimist,” she smiled. 

‘‘ No,” he shook his head. “ I merely know that it’s 
a hard game to buck, under normal conditions. We’re 
of the fortunate few, that’s all.” 

‘‘ You’re not going to spoil the pleasure that’s 
within your reach by pondering the misfortunes of 
those who are less lucky, are you.^ ” she inquired curi- 
ously. 


NEIGHBORS 


247 


“ Not much,” he drawled. ‘‘ Besides, that isn’t my 
chief objection to town. I simply can’t endure the 
noise and confusion and the manifold stinks, and the 
universal city attitude — which is to gouge the other 
fellow before he gouges you. Too much like a dog 
fight. No, I haven’t any mission to remedy social and 
economic ills. I’m taking the egotistic view that it 
doesn’t concern me, that I’m perfectly justified in en- 
joying myself in my own way, seeing that I’m in a 
position to do so. We’re going to take our fun as we 
find it. Just the same,” he finished thoughtfully, ‘‘ I’d 
as soon be pulling into that ranch of ours on the hur- 
ricane deck of a right good horse as approaching Van- 
couver’s water front. This isn’t any place to spend 
money or to see anything. It’s a big, noisy, over- 
grown village, overrun with business exploiters and 
real-estate sharks. It’ll be a city some day. At pres- 
ent it’s still in the shambling stage of civic youth.” 

In so far as Hazel had observed upon her former 
visit, this, if a trifle sweeping, was in the main correct. 
So she had no regrets when Bill confined their stay to 
the time necessary to turn his gold into a bank ac- 
count, and allow her to buy a trunkful, more or less, 
of pretty clothes. Then they bore on eastward and 
halted at Ashcroft. Bill had refused to commit him- 
self positively to a date for the eastern pilgrimage. 
He wanted to see the cabin again. For that matter 
she did, too — so that their sojourn there did not carry 
them over another winter. That loomed ahead like a 
vague threat. Those weary months in the Klappan 
Range had filled her with the subtle poison of discon- 


248 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


tent, for which she felt that new scenes and new faces 
would prove the only antidote. 

“ There’s a wagon road to Fort Gkorge,” he told 
her. “We could go in there by the B. X. steamers, 
but I’m afraid we couldn’t buy an outfit to go on. I 
guess a pack outfit from the end of the stage line will 
be about right.” 

From Ashcroft an auto stage whirled them swiftly 
into the heart of the Cariboo country — to Quesnelle, 
where Bill purchased four head of horses in an after- 
noon, packed, saddled, and hit the trail at daylight in 
the morning. 

It was very pleasant to loaf along a passable road 
mounted on a light-footed horse, and Hazel enjoyed 
it if for no more than the striking contrast to that 
terrible journey in and out of the Klappan. Here 
were no heartbreaking mountains to scale. The 
scourge of flies was well-nigh past. They took the 
road in easy stages, well-provisioned, sleeping in a good 
bed at nights, camping as the spirit moved when a likely 
trout stream crossed their trail, venison and grouse all 
about them for variety of diet and the sport of hunting. 

So they fared through the Telegraph Range, crossed 
the Blackwater, and came to Fort George by way of a 
ferry over the Fraser. 

“ This country is getting civilized,” Bill observed 
that evening. “ They tell me the G. T. P. has steel 
laid to a point three hundred miles east of here. This 
bloomin’ road’ll be done in another year. They’re 
grading all along the line. I bought that hundred 
and sixty acres on pure sentiment, but it looks 


NEIGHBORS 


249 


like it may turn out a profitable business trans- 
action. That railroad is going to flood this country 
with farmers, and settlement means a network of rail- 
roads and skyrocketing ascension of land values.” 

The vanguard of the land hungry had already pene- 
trated to Fort George. Up and down the Nachaco 
Valley, and bordering upon the Fraser, were the cabins 
of the preemptors. The roads were dotted with the 
teams of the incoming. A sizable town had sprung up 
around the old trading post. 

‘‘ They come like bees when the rush starts,” Bill 
remarked. 

Leaving Fort George behind, they bore across coun- 
try toward Pine River. Here and there certain land- 
marks, graven deep in Hazel’s recollection, uprose to 
claim her attention. And one evening at sunset they 
rode up to the little cabin, all forlorn in its clearing. 

The grass waved to their stirrups, and the pigweed 
stood rank up to the very door. 

Inside, a gray film of dust had accumulated on every- 
thing, and the rooms were oppressive with the musty 
odors that gather in a closed, untenanted house. But 
apart from that it stood as they had left it thirteen 
months before. No foot had crossed the threshold. 
The pile of wood and kindling lay beside the fireplace 
as Bill had placed it the morning they left. 

“ ‘ Be it ever so humble,’ ” Bill left the line of the 
old song unfinished, but his tone was full of jubilation. 
Between them they threw wide every door and window. 
The cool evening wind filled the place with sweet, pine- 
scented air. Then Bill started a blaze roaring in the 


250 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


black-mouthed fireplace — to make it look natural, he 
said — and went out to hobble his horses for the night. 

In the morning they began to unpack their house- 
hold goods. Rugs and bearskins found each its ac- 
customed place upon the floor. His books went back 
on the shelves. With magical swiftness the cabin re- 
sumed its old-home atmosphere. And that night Bill 
stretched himself on the grizzly hide before the fire- 
place, and kept his nose in a book until Hazel, who 
was in no humor to read, fretted herself into something 
approaching a temper. 

‘‘ You’re about as sociable as a clam,” she broke into 
his absorption at last. 

He looked up in surprise, then chucked the volume 
carelessly aside, and twisted himself around till his 
head rested in her lap. 

“ Vot iss.^^ ” he asked cheerfully. ‘‘Lonesome.^ 
Bored with yourself.? Ain’t I here.? ” 

“ Your body is,” she retorted. But your spirit is 
communing with those musty old philosophers.” 

“ Oh, be good — go thou and do likewise,” he 
returned impenitently. I’m tickled to death to be 
home. And I’m fairly book-starved. It’s fierce to be 
deprived of even a newspaper for twelve months. I’ll 
be a year getting caught up. Surely you don’t feel 
yourself neglected because I happen to have my nose 
stuck in a book .? ” 

“ Of course not ! ” she denied vigorously. The 
childish absurdity of her attitude struck her with sud- 
den force. ‘‘ Still, I’d like you to talk to me once in a 
while.” 


NEIGHBORS 


251 


“ ‘ Of shoes and ships and sealing wax ; of cabbages 
and kings,’ ” he flung at her mischievously. “ I’ll 
make music; that’s better than mere words.” 

He picked up his mandolin and tuned the strings. 
Like most things which he set out to do, Bill had mas- 
tered his instrument, and could coax out of it all the 
harmony of which it was capable. He seemed to know 
music better than many who pass for musicians. But 
he broke off in the midst of a bar. 

‘‘ Say, we could get a piano in here next spring,” 
he said. “ I just recollected it. We’ll do it.” 

Now, this was something that she had many a time 
audibly wished for. Yet the prospect aroused no en- 
thusiasm. 

“ That’ll be nice,” she said — but not as she would 
have said it a year earlier. Bill’s eyes narrowed a 
trifle, but he still smiled. And suddenly he stepped 
around behind her chair, put both hands under her 
chin, and tilted her head backward. 

“ Ah, you’re plumb sick and tired to death of every- 
thing, aren’t you?” he said soberly. “You’ve been 
up here too long. You sure need a change. I’ll have 
to take you out and give you the freedom of the cities, 
let you dissipate and pink-tea, and rub elbows with the 
mob for a while. Then you’ll be glad to drift back to 
this woodsy hiding-place of ours. When do you want 
to start? ” 

“ Why, Bill ! ” she protested. 

But she realized in a flash that Bill could read her 
better than she could read herself. Few of her emo- 
tions could remain long hidden from that keenly ob- 


252 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


serving and mercilessly logical mind. She knew that 
he guessed where she stood, and by what paths she had 
gotten there. Trust him to know. And it made her 
very tender toward him that he was so quick to under- 
stand. Most men would have resented. 

“ I want to stack a few tons of hay,” he went on, 
disregarding her exclamation. ‘‘ I’ll need it in the 
spring, if not this winter. Soon as that’s done we’ll 
hit the high spots. We’ll take three or four thousand 
dollars, and while it lasts we’lh be a couple of — of 
high-class tramps. Huh.^ Does it sound good.?’ ” 

She nodded vigorously. 

“ High-class tramps,” she repeated musingly. 
‘‘ That sounds fine.” 

“ Perk up, then,” he wheedled. 

‘‘ Bill-boy,” she murmured, “ you mustn’t take me 
too seriously.” 

“ I took you for better or for worse,” he answered, 
with a kiss. “ I don’t want it to turn out worse. I 
want you to be contented and happy here, where I’ve 
planned to make our home. I know you love me quite 
a lot, little person. Nature fitted us in a good many 
ways to be mates. But you’ve gone through a pretty 
drastic siege of isolation in this rather grim country, 
and I guess it doesn’t seem such an alluring place as it 
did at first. I don’t want you to nurse that feeling 
until it becomes chronic. Then we would be out of 
tune, and it would be good-by happiness. But I think 
I know the cure for your malady.” 

That was his final word. He deliberately switched 
the conversation into other channels. 


NEIGHBORS 


253 


In the morning he began his hay cutting. About 
eleven o’clock he threw down his scythe and stalked to 
the house. 

‘‘ Put on your hat, and let’s go investigate a mys- 
tery,” said he. “ I heard a cow bawl in the woods a 
minute ago. A regular barnyard bellow.” 

“ A cow bawling? ” she echoed. ‘‘ Sure? What 
would cattle be doing away up here ? ” 

“ That’s what I want to know ? ” Bill laughed. 

I’ve never seen a cow north of the Frazer — not this 
side of the Rockies, anyway.” 

They saddled their horses, and rode out in the di- 
rection from whence had arisen the bovine complaint. 
The sound was not repeated, and Hazel had begun to 
chaff Bill about a too-vivid imagination when within 
a half mile of the clearing he pulled his horse up short 
in the middle of a little meadow. 

« Look ! ” 

The track of a broad-tired wagon had freshly crushed 
the thick grass. Bill squinted at the trail, then his 
gaze swept the timber beyond. 

« Well!” 

« What is it. Bill? ” Hazel asked. 

“ Somebody has been cutting timber over there,” 
he enlightened. “ I can see the fresh ax work. Looks 
like they’d been hauling poles. Let’s follow this track 
a ways.” 

The tiny meadow was fringed on the north by a grove 
of poplars. Beyond that lay another clear space of 
level land, perhaps forty acres in extent. They broke 
through the belt of poplars — and pulled up again, 


254 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


On one side of the meadow stood a cabin, the fresh- 
peeled log walls glaring yellow in the sun, and lifting 
an earth-covered roof to the autumn sky. Bill whistled 
softly. 

“ I’ll be hanged,” he uttered, ‘‘ if there isn’t the 
cow ! ” 

Along the west side of the meadow ran a brown streak 
of sod, and down one side of this a man guided the 
handles of a plow drawn by the strangest yokemates 
Hazel’s eyes had seen for many a day. 

‘‘ For goodness’ sake ! ” she exclaimed. 

“ That’s the true pioneer spirit for you,” Bill spoke 
absently. ‘‘ He has bucked his way into the heart of 
a virgin country, and he’s breaking sod with a mule 
and a cow. That’s adaptation to environment with a 
vengeance — and grit.” 

“ There’s a woman, too. Bill. And see — she’s car- 
rying a baby ! ” Hazel pointed excitedly. Oh, 
Bill!” 

“ Let’s go over.” He stirred up his horse. ‘‘ What 
did I tell you about folk that hanker for lots of elbow- 
room They’re coming.” 

The man halted his strangely assorted team to watch 
them come. The woman stood a step outside the door, 
a baby in her arms, another toddler holding fast to 
her skirt. A thick-bodied, short, square-shouldered 
man was this newcomer, with a round, pleasant face. 

“ Hello, neighbor I ” Bill greeted. 

The plowman lifted his old felt hat courteously. His 
face lit up. 

“ Acli! ” said he. “ Neighbor. Dot iss a goot vord 


NEIGHBORS 


255 


in diss country vere dere iss no neighbor. But I am 
glat to meet you. Vill you come do der house und 
rest a v’ile.? ” 

“ Sure ! ” Bill responded. “ But we’re neighbors, 
all right. Did you notice a cabin about half a mile 
west of here ? That’s our place — when we’re at 
home.” 

“ So ? ” The word escaped with the peculiar rising 
inflection of the Teuton. “ I haf saw dot cabin ven 
ve come here. But I dink it vass abandon. Und I 
pick dis place mitout hope off a neighbor. Id iss goot 
lant. Veil, let us to der house go. Id vill rest der 
mule — und Gretchen, der cow. Hah ! ” 

He rolled a blue eye on his incongruous team, and 
grinned widely. 

“ Come,” he invited ; ‘‘ mine vife vill be glat.” 

They found her a matron of thirty-odd; fresh- 
cheeked, round-faced like her husband, typically Ger- 
man, without his accent of the Fatherland. Hazel 
at once appropriated the baby. It lay peacefully in 
her arms, staring wide-eyed, making soft, gurgly 
sounds. 

“ The little dear ! ” Hazel murmured. 

“ Lauer, our name iss,” the man said casually, when 
they were seated. 

“ Wagstaff, mine is,” Bill completed the informal in- 
troduction. 

‘‘ So ? ” Lauer responded. “ Id hass a German 
sount, dot name, yes.” 

“ Four or five generations back,” Bill answered. “ I 
guess I’m as American as they make ’em.” 


256 NORTH OF. FIFTY-THREE 

“ I am from Bavaria,” Lauer told him. “ Vill you 
shmoke? I light mine bibe — mit your vife’s permis- 
sion. 

“ Yes,” he continued, stuffing the bowl of his pipe 
with a stubby forefinger, “ I am from Bavaria. Dere 
I vass upon a farm brought oop. I serf in der army 
my dime. Den Ameriga. Dere I marry my vife, who 
is born in Milvaukee. I vork in der big brreweries. 
Afder dot I learn to be a carpenter. Now I am a 
kink, mit a castle all mine own, I am no more a vage 
slafe.” 

He laughed at his own conceit, a great, roaring bel- 
low that filled the room. 

“ You’re on the right track,” Bill nodded. “ It’s a 
pity more people don’t take the same notion. What 
do you think of this country, anyway?” 

“ It iss goot,” Lauer answered briefly, and with un- 
hesitating certainty. “ It iss goot. Vor der boor 
man it iss — it iss saltation. Mit fife huntret tollars 
und hiss two hants he can himself a home make — und 
a lifing be sure off.” 

Beside Hazel Lauer’s wife absently caressed the blond 
head of her four-year-old daughter. 

“No, I don’t think I’ll ever get lonesome,” she said. 
“ I’m too glad to be here. And I’ve got lots of work 
and my babies. Of course, it’s natural I’d miss a 
woman friend running in now and then to chat. But a 
person can’t have it all. And I’d do anything to have 
a roof of our own, and to have it some place where our 
livin’ don’t dej)end on a pay envelope. Oh, a city’s 
dreadful, I think, when your next meal almost depends 


NEIGHBORS 


on your man holdin’ his job. I’ve lived in town ever 
since I was fifteen. I lost three babies in Milwaukee 
— hot weather, bad air, bad milk, bad everything, un- 
less you have plenty of money. Many a time I’ve sat 
and cried, just from thinkin’ how bad I wanted a little 
place of our own, where there was grass and trees and 
a piece of ground for a garden. And I knew we’d 
never be able to buy it. We couldn’t get ahead 
enough.” 

“ Und so,” her husband took up the tale, “ I hear 
off diss country, vere lant can be for noddings got. 
Und so we scrape und pinch und safe nickels und dimes 
for fife year. Und here ve are. All der vay from Vis- 
consin in der vaigon, yes. Mit two mules. In Ash- 
croft I buy der cow, so dot ve haf der fresh milk. Und 
dot iss lucky. For von mule iss die on der road. So 
I am plow oop der lant und haul my vaigon mit von 
mule und Gretchen, der cow.” 

Hazel had a momentary vision of unrelated hard* 
ships by the way, and she wondered how the man could 
laugh and his wife smile over it. She knew the stifling 
heat of narrow streets in mid-summer, and the hungry 
longing for cool, green shade. She had seen something 
of a city’s poverty. But she knew also the privations 
of the trail. Two thiousand miles in a wagon! And 
at the journey’s end only a rude cabin of logs — and 
years of steady toil. Isolation in a huge and lonely 
land. Yet these folk were happy. She wondered 
briefly if her own viewpoint were possibly askew. She 
knew that she could not face such a prospect except in 
utter rebellion. Not now. The bleak peaks of the 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


ivlappan rose up before her mind’s eye, the picture of 
five horses dead in the snow, the wolves that snapped 
and snarled over their bones. She shuddered. She 
was still pondering this when she and Bill dismounted 
at home. 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE DOLLAR CHASERS 

Granville took them to its bosom with a haste and 
earnestness that made Hazel catch her breath. The 
Marshes took possession of them upon their arrival, 
and they were no more than domiciled under the Marsh 
roof than all her old friends flocked to call. Tactfully 
none so much as mentioned Andrew Bush, nor the five- 
thousand-dollar legacy — the disposition of which sum 
still perplexed that defunct gentleman’s worthy execu- 
tors. And once more in a genial atmosphere Hazel 
concluded to let sleeping dogs lie. Many a time in the 
past two years she had looked forward to cutting them 
all as dead as they had cut her during that unfortu- 
nate period. But once among them, and finding them 
willing, nay, anxious, to forget that they had ever 
harbored unjust thoughts of her, she took their prof- 
fered friendship at its face value. It was quite grati- 
fying to know that many of them envied her. She 
learned from various sources that Bill’s fortune loomed 
big, had grown by some mysterious process of Gran- 
ville tattle, until it had reached the charmed six figures 
of convention. 

That in itself was sufficient to establish their pres- 
tige. In a society that lived by and for the dollar, and 
measured most things with its dollar yardstick, that 


26 o 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


trninrniml item opened — indeed, forced open — many 
doorH to licrself and her husband which would otherwise 
have remained rigid on their fastenings. It was pleas- 
ant to be souglit out and made much of, and it pleased 
her to think that some of her quondam friends were 
genuinely sorry that they had once stood aloof. They 
atlenjpt(‘d to atone, it would seem. For three weeks 
they lived in an atmosphere of teas and dinners and 
theater parties, a giddy little whirl that grew daily 
more attractive, so far as Hazel was concerned. 

There had been changes. Jack Barrow had con- 
soled himself with a bride. Moreover, he was making 
good, in the popular phrase, at the real-estate game. 
Tlic Marshes, as she had previously known them, had 
been tottering on the edge of shabby gentility. But 
they h/id come into money. And as Bill slangily put it, 
they were using their pile to cut a lot of social ice. ; 
Kitty Brooks’ husband was now the head of the biggest 
advertising agency in Granville. Hazel was glad of ^ 
that mild success. Kitty Brooks was the one person 'i 
for whom she had always kept a warm corner in ber j 
heart. Kitty had stood stoutly and unequivocally by s 
her when all the others had viewed her with a dubious ' 
eye. Aside from these there were scores of young peo- 
})le who revolved in their same old orbits. Two years * 
will upon occasion make profound changes in some lives, j 
and leave others untouched. But cliange or no change, ‘ 
slic found herself caught up and carried along on a | 
pleasant tide. 

Slie was inordinately proud of Bill, when she com- 
parisl him with the average Granville male — yet she 


THE DOLLAR CHASERS 


261 


found herself wishing he would adopt a little more 
readily the Granville viewpoint. He fell short of it, 
or went beyond it, she could not be sure which ; she had 
an uneasy feeling sometimes that he looked upon Gran- 
ville doings and Granville folk with amused tolerance, 
not unmixed with contempt. But he attracted atten- 
tion. Whenever he was minded to talk he found ready 
listeners. And he did not seem to mind being dragged 
to various functions, matinees, and the like. He fell 
naturally into that mode of existence, no matter that 
it was in profound contrast to his previous manner of 
life, as she knew it. She felt a huge satisfaction in 
that. Anything but a well-bred man would have re- 
pelled her, and she had recognized that quality in Bill 
Wagstalf even when he had carried her bodily into the 
wilderness against her explicit desire that memorable 
time. And he was now exhibiting an unsuspected 
polish. She used to wonder amusedly if he were pos- 
sibly the same Roaring Bill whom she had with her 
eyes seen hammer a man insensible with his fists, who 
had kept tough ” frontiersmen warily side-stepping 
him in Cariboo Meadows. Certainly he was a many- 
sided individual. 

Once or twice she conjured up a vision of his get- 
ting into some business there, and utterly foregoing 
the North — which for her was already beginning to 
take on the aspect of a bleak and cheerless region where 
there was none of the things which daily whetted her 
appetite for luxury, nothing but hardships innumer- 
able — and gold. The gold had been their reward — 
a reward well earned, she thought. Still — they had 


262 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


been wonderfully happy there at the Pine River cabin, 
she remembered. 

They came home from a theater party late one night. 
Bill sat down by their bedroom window, and stared out 
at the street lights, twin rows of yellow beads stretch- 
ing away to a vanishing point in the pitch-black of a 
cloudy night. Hazel kicked off her slippers, and grate- 
fully toasted her silk-stockinged feet at a small coal 
grate. Fall had come, and there was a sharp nip to 
the air. 

“ Well, what do you think of it as far as you’ve 
gone.?^ ” he asked abruptly. 

“ Of what.? ” she asked, jarred out of meditation 
upon the play they had just witnessed. 

“ All this.” He waved a hand comprehensively. 
“ This giddy swim we’ve got into.” 

“ I think it’s fine,” she candidly admitted. ‘‘ I’m 
enjoying myself. I like it. Don’t you.?” 

“ As a diversion,” he observed thoughtfully, “ I 
don’t mind it. These people are all very affable and 
pleasant, and they’ve rather gone out of their way to 
entertain us. But, after all, what the dickens does 
it amount to.? They spend their whole life running 
in useless circles. I should think they’d get sick of 
it. You will.” 

“ Hardly, Billum,” she smiled. We’re merely 
making up for two years of isolation. I think we must 
be remarkable people that we didn’t fight like cats and 
dogs. For eighteen months, you know, there wasn’t 
a soul to talk to, and not much to think about except 
what you could do if you were some place else.” 


THE DOLLAR CHASERS 


263 

“ You’re acquiring the atmosphere,” he remarked — 
sardonically, she thought. 

“No; just enjoying myself,” she replied lightly. 

“ Well, if you really are,” he answered slowly, “ we 
may as well settle here for the winter — and get settled 
right away. I’m rather weary of being a guest in 
another man’s house, to tell you the truth.” 

“ Why, I’d love to stay here all winter,” she said. 
“ But I thought you intended to knock around more 
or less.” 

“ But don’t you see, you don’t particularly care to,” 
he pointed out ; “ and it would spoil the fun of going 
any place for me if you were not interested. And 
when it comes to a show-down I’m not aching to be a 
bird of passage. One city is pretty much like another 
to me. You seem to have acquired a fairly select circle 
of friends and acquaintances, and you may as well 
have your fling right here. We’ll take a run over to 
New York. I want to get some books and things. 
Then we’ll come back here and get a house or a flat. 
I tell you right now,” he laughed not unpleasantly, 
“ I’m going to renig on this society game. You can 
play it as hard as you like, until spring. I’ll be there 
with bells on when it comes to a dance. And I’ll go to 
a show — when a good play comes along. But I won’t 
mix up with a lot of silly women and equally silly she- 
men, any more than is absolutely necessary.” 

“ Why, Bill ! ” she exclaimed, aghast. 

“ Well, ain’t it so ? ” he defended lazily. “ There’s 
Kitty Brooks — she has certainly got intelligence above 
the average. That Lorimer girl has brains superim- 


264 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

I 

posed on her artistic temperament, and she uses ’em to 
advantage. Practically all the rest that I’ve met are 
intellectual nonentities — strong on looks and clothes ^ 
and amusing themselves, and that lets them out. And : 
they have no excuse, because they’ve had unlimited 
advantages. The men divide themselves into two 
types. One that chases the dollar, talks business, 
thinks business, knows nothing outside of business, and 
their own special line of business at that ; the other 
type, like these Arthur fellows, and Dave Allan and 
T. Fordham Brown, who go in for afternoon teas and 
such gentlemanly pastimes, and whose most strenuous 
exercise is a game of billiards. Shucks, there isn’t a 
real man in the lot. Maybe I’ll run across some peo- 
ple who don’t take a two-by-four view of life if I stay 
around here long enough, but it hasn’t happened to 
me yet. I hope I’m not an intellectual snob, little per- 
son, any more than I’m puffed up over happening to 
be a little bigger and stronger than the average man, 
but I must say that the habitual conversation of these 
people gives me a pain. That platitudinous discus- 
sion of the play to-night, for instance.” 

“ That was droll.” Hazel chuckled at the recollec- 
tion, and she recalled the weary look that had once or 
twice flitted over Bill’s face during that after-theater 
supper. 

But she herself could see only the humor of it. She j 
was fascinated by the social niceties and the surround- 
ings of the set she had drifted into. The little dinners, 
the impromptu teas, the light chatter and general at- 
mosphere of luxury more than counterbalanced any 


THE DOLLAR CHASERS 


265 


other lack. She wanted only to play, and she was pre- 
pared to seize avidly on any form of pleasure, no matter 
if in last analysis it were utterly frivolous. She could 
smile at the mental vacuity she encountered, and think 
nothing of it, if with that vacuity went those material 
factors which made for ease and entertainment. The 
physical side of her was all alert. Luxury and the 
mild excitements of a social life that took nothing seri- 
ously, those were the things she craved. For a long 
time she had been totally deprived of them. Nor had 
such unlimited opportunities ever before been in her 
grasp. 

‘‘ Yes, that was droll,” she repeated. 

Bill snorted. 

“Droll? Perhaps,” he said. “Blatant ignorance, 
coupled with a desire to appear the possessor of cul- 
ture, is sometimes amusing. But as a general thing 
it simply irritates.” 

“ You’re hard to please,” she replied. “ Can’t you 
enjoy yourself, take things as they come, without be- 
ing so critical? ” 

He shrugged his shoulders, and remained silent. 

“ Well,” he said presently, “ we’ll take that jaunt 
to New York day after to-morrow.” 

He was still sitting by the window when Hazel was 
ready to go to bed. She came back into the room in a 
trailing silk kimono, and, stealing softly up behind him, 
put both hands on his shoulders. 

“ What are you thinking so hard about. Billy-boy ? ” 
she whispered. 

“I was thinking about Jake Lauer, and wondering 


266 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

how he was making it go,” Bill answered. “ I was also 
picturing to myself how some of these worthy citizens 
would mess things up if they had to follow in his steps. 
Hang it, I don’t know but we’d be better off if we were 
pegging away for a foothold somewhere, like old Jake.” 

“ If we had to do that,” she argued, “ I suppose we i 

would, and manage to get along. But since we don’t j 

have to, why wish for it.?^ Money makes things pleas- 
anter.” 

“ If money meant that we would be compelled to lead 
the sort of existence most of these people do,” he re- 
torted, “ I’d take measures to be broke as soon as pos- 
sible. What the deuce is there to it.^ The women get 
up in the morning, spend the forenoon fixing themselves 
up to take in some innocuous gabblefest after luncheon. 
Then they get into their war paint for dinner, and after 
dinner rush madly off to some other festive • stunt. 
Swell rags and a giddy round. If it were just fun, it 
would be all right. But it’s the serious business of 
life with them. And the men are in the same boat. 

All of ’em collectively don’t amount to a pinch of 
snuff. This thing that they call business is mostly 
gambling with what somebody else has sweated to pro- 
duce. They’re a soft-handed, soft-bodied lot of in- 
competent egotists, if you ask me. Any of ’em would 
lick your boots in a genteel sort of way if there was 
money in it; and they’d just as cheerfully chisel their 
best friend out of his last dollar, if it could be done in 
a business way. They haven’t even the saving grace 
of physical hardihood.” 

“ You’re awful ! ” Hazel commented. 


THE DOLLAR CHASERS 


267 


Bill snorted again. 

“ To-morrow, you advise our hostess that we’re 
traveling,” he instructed. When we come back we’ll 
make headquarters at a hotel until we locate a place 
of our own — if you are sure you want to winter here.” 

Her mind was quite made up to spend the winter 
there, and she frankly said so — provided he had no 
other choice. They had to winter somewhere. They 
had set out to spend a few months in pleasant idleness. 
They could well afford that. And, unless he had other 
plans definitely formed, was not Granville as good as 
any place.? Was it not better, seeing that they did 
know some one there.? It was big enough to afford 
practically all the advantages of any city. 

“ Oh, yes, I suppose so. All right ; we’ll winter 
here,” Bill acquiesced. ‘‘ That’s settled.” 

And, as was his habit when he had come to a similar 
conclusion, he refused to talk further on that subject, 
but fell to speculating idly on New York. In which 
he was presently aided and abetted by Hazel, who had 
never invaded Manhattan, nor, for that matter, any of 
the big Atlantic cities. She had grown up in Gran- 
ville, with but brief journeys to near-by points. And 
Granville could scarcely be classed as a metropolis. 
It numbered a trifle over three hundred thousand souls. 
Bill had termed it “ provincial.” But it meant more 
to her than any other place in the East, by virtue of old 
associations and more recent acquaintance. One must 
have a pivotal point of such a sort, just as one cannot 
forego the possession of a nationality. 

New York, she was constrained to admit, rather 


268 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


overwhelmed her. She traversed Broadway and other 
world-known arteries, and felt a trifle dubious amid the 
unceasing crush. Bill piloted her to famous cafes, 
and to equally famous theaters. She made sundry pur- 
chases in magnificent shops. The huge conglomera- 
tion of sights and sounds made an unforgettable im- 
pression upon her. She sensed keenly the colossal mag- 
nitude of it all. But she felt a distinct wave of relief 
when they were Granville bound once more. 

In a week they were settled comfortably in a domi- 
cile of their own — five rooms in an up-to-date apart- 
ment house. And since the social demands on Mrs. 
William WagstafT’s time grew apace, a capable maid 
and a cook were added to the WagstafF establishment. 
Thus she was relieved of the onus of housework. Her 
time was wholly her own, at her own disposal or Biliks, 
as she elected. 

But by imperceptible degrees they came to take 
diverse roads in the swirl of life which had caught 
them up. There were so many little woman affairs 
where a man was superfluous. There were others which 
Bill flatly refused to attend. ‘‘ Hen parties,” he 
dubbed them. More and more he remained at home 
with his books. Invariably he read through the day- 
time, and unless to take Hazel for a walk or a drive, 
or some simple pleasure which they could indulge in 
by themselves, he would not budge. If it were night, 
and a dance was to the fore, he would dress and go 
gladly. At such, and upon certain occasions when a 
certain little group would take supper at some cafe, 
he was apparently in his element. But there was al- 


THE DOLLAR CHASERS 


269 


ways a back fire if Hazel managed to persuade him to 
attend anything in the nature of a formal affair. He 
drew the line at what he defined as social tommyrot, 
and he drew it more and more sharply. 

Sometimes Hazel caught herself wondering if they 
were getting as much out of the holiday as they should 
have gotten, as they had planned to get when they were 
struggling through that interminable winter. She was. 
But not Bill. And while she wished that he could get 
the same satisfaction out of his surroundings and op- 
portunities as she conceived herself to be getting, she 
often grew impatient with his sardonic, tolerant con- 
tempt toward the particular set she mostly consorted 
with. If she ventured to give a tea, he fled the house 
as if from the plague. He made acquaintances of his 
own, men from God only knew where, individuals who 
occasionally filled the dainty apartment with malodor- 
ous tobacco fumes, and who would cheerfully sit up all 
night discoursing earnestly on any subject under the 
sun. But so long as Bill found Granville habitable 
she did not mind. 

Above all, as the winter and the winter gayety set in 
together with equal vigor, she thought with greater 
reluctance of the ultimate return to that hushed, deep- 
forested area that surrounded the cabin. 

She wished fervently that Bill would take up some 
business that would keep him in touch with civilization. 
He had the capital, she considered, and there was no 
question of his ability. Her faith in his power to en- 
compass whatever he set about was strong. Other men, 
less gifted, had acquired wealth, power, even a measure 


270 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


of fame, from a less auspicious beginning. Why not 
he? 

It seemed absurd to bury one’s self in an uninhabited 
waste, when life held forth so much to be grasped. 
Her friends told her so — thus confirming her own 
judgment. But she could never quite bring herself to 
put it in so many words to Bill. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 

The cycle of weeks brought them to January. They 
had dropped into something of a routine in their daily 
lives. Bill’s interest and participation in social affairs 
became negligible. Of Hazel’s circle he classed some 
half dozen people as desirable acquaintances, and saw 
more or less of them — Kitty Brooks and her husband ; 
Vesta Lorimer, a keen-witted young woman upon whom 
nature had bestowed a double portion of physical at- 
tractiveness and a talent akin to genius for the paint- 
ing of miniatures ; her Brother Paul, who was the silent 
partner in a brokerage firm; Doctor Hart, a silent, 
grim-visaged physician, whose vivacious wife was one of 
Hazel’s new intimates. Of that group Bill was al- 
ways a willing member. The others he met courteously 
when he was compelled to meet them; otherwise he 
passed them up entirely. 

When he was not absorbed in a book or magazine, 
he spent his time in some downtown haunt, having ac- 
quired membership in a club as a concession to their 
manner of life. Once he came home with flushed face 
and overbright eyes, radiating an odor of whisky. 
Hazel had never seen him drink to excess. She was 
correspondingly shocked, and took no pains to hide 
her feelings. But Bill was blandly undisturbed. 


272 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ You don’t need to look so horrified,” he drawled. 

I won’t beat you up nor wreck the furniture. Inad- 
vertently took a few too many, that’s all. Nothing 
else to do, anyhow. Your friend Brooks’ Carlton Club 
is as barren a place as one of your tea fights. They 
don’t do anything much but sit ai*ound and drink 
Scotch and soda, and talk about the market. I’m 
drunk, and glad of it. If I were in Cariboo Meadows, 
now,” he confided owlishly, ‘‘ I’d have some fun with 
the natives. You can’t turn yourself loose here. It’s 
too blame civilized and proper. I had half a notion 
to lick a Johnnie or two, just for sport, and then I 
thought probably they’d have me up for assault and 
battery. Just recollected our social reputation — long 
may she wave — in time.” 

“ Your reputation certainly won’t be unblemished if 
any one saw you come in in that condition,” she cried, 
in angry mortification. “ Surely you could find some- 
thing better to do than to get drunk.” 

“ I’m going straight to bed, little person,” he re- 
turned. ‘‘ Scold not, nor fret. William will be him- 
self again ere yet the morrow’s sun shall clear the 
horizon. Let us avoid recrimination. The tongue is, 
or would seem to be, the most vital weapon of modern 
society. Therefore let us leave the trenchant blade 
quiescent in its scabbard. Fd rather settle a dispute 
with my fists, or even a gun. Good night.” 

He made his unsteady way to their extra bedroom, 
and he was still there with the door locked when Hazel , , 
returned from a card party at the Krones’. It was the ;J 
first night they had spent apart since their marriage, || 


A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 


273 


and Hazel was inclined to be huffed when he looked in 
before breakfast, dressed, shaved, and smiling, as if he 
had never had even a bowing acquaintance with John 
Barleycorn. But Bill refused to take her indignation 
seriously, and it died for lack of fuel. 

A week or so later he became suddenly and unex- 
pectedly active. He left the house as soon as his break- 
fast was eaten, and he did not come home to luncheon 
— a circumstance which irritated Hazel, since it was 
one of those rare days when she herself lunched at 
home. Late in the afternoon he telephoned briefly that 
he would dine downtown. And when he did return, at 
nine or thereabouts in the evening, he clamped a cigar 
between his teeth, and fell to work covering a sheet 
of paper with interminable rows of figures. 

Hazel had worried over the possibility of his having 
had another tilt with the Scotch and sodas. He re- 
lieved her of that fear, and she restrained her curiosity 
until boredom seized her. The silence and the scratch- 
ing of his pen began to grate on her nerves. 

“ What is all the clerical work about ” she inquired. 

Reckoning your assets and liabilities ? ” 

Bill smiled and pushed aside the paper. 

I’m going to promote a mining company,” he told 
her, quite casually. ‘‘ It has been put up to me as a 
business proposition — and I’ve got to the stage where 
I have to do something, or I’ll sure have the 
Willies.” 

She overlooked the latter statement; it conveyed no 
special significance at the time. But his first state- 
ment opened up possibilities such as of late she had 


274 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


sincerely hoped would come to pass, and she was all 
interest. 

“ Promote a mining company ? ” she repeated. 
“ That sounds extremely businesslike. How — when 
— where ? ” 

“ Now — here in Granville,” he replied. “ The how 
is largely Paul Lorimer’s idea. You see,” he con- 
tinued, warming up a bit to the subject, “ when I was 
prospecting that creek where we made the clean-up 
last summer, I ran across a well-defined quartz lead. 
I packed out a few samples in my pockets, and I hap- 
pened to show them as well as one or two of the nuggets 
to some of these fellows at the club a while back. Lor- 
imer took a piece of the quartz and had it assayed. It 
looms up as something pretty big. So he and Brooks 
and a couple of other fellows want me to go ahead and 
organize and locate a group of claims in there. Twenty 
or thirty thousand dollars capital might make ’em all 
rich. Of course, the placer end of it will be the big 
thing while the lode is being developed. It should pay 
well from the start. Getting the start is easy. As a 
matter of fact, you could sell any old wildcat that has 
the magic of gold about it. Men seem to get the fever 
as soon as they finger the real yellow stuff. These fel- 
lows I’ve talked to are dead anxious to get in.” 

“ But ” — her knowledge of business methods sug- 
gested a difiiculty — “ you can’t sell stock in a business 
that has no real foundation — yet. Don’t you have 
to locate those claims first.?* ” 

“ Wise old head ; you have the idea, all right.” He 
smiled. “ But this is not a stock- jobbing proposition. 


A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 


275 


I wouldn’t be in on it if it were, believe me. It’s to be 
a corporation, where not to exceed six men will own all 
the stock that’s issued. And so far as the claims are 
concerned, I’ve got Whitey Lewis located in Fort 
George, and I’ve been burning the wires and spending 
a bundle of real money getting him grub-staked. He 
has got four men besides himself all ready to hit the 
trail as soon as I give the word.” 

“ You won’t have to go? ” she put in quickly. 

“ No,” he murmured. “ It isn’t necessary, at this 
particular stage of the game. But I wouldn’t mind 
popping a whip over a good string of dogs, just the 
same.” 

“ B-r-r-r ! ” she shivered involuntarily. “ Four 
hundred miles across that deep snow, through that 
steady, flesh-searing cold. I don’t envy them the 
journey.” 

Bill relapsed into unsmiling silence, sprawling listless 
in his chair, staring absently at the rug, as if he had 
lost all interest in the matter. 

‘‘ If you stay here and manage this end of it,” she 
pursued lightly, ‘‘ I suppose you’ll have an oflice down- 
town.” 

“ I suppose so,” he returned laconically. 

She came over and stood by him, playfully rumpling 
his brown hair with her Angers. 

« I’m glad you’ve found something to loose that pent- 
up energy of yours on. Billy-boy,” she said. ‘‘ You’ll 
make a success of it, I know. I don’t see why you 
shouldn’t make a success of any kind of business. But 
I didn’t think you’d ever tackle business. You have 


276 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


such peculiar views about business and business prac- 
tice.” 

‘‘ I despise the ordinary business ethic,” he returned 
sharply. ‘‘ It’s a get-something-for-nothing proposi- 
tion all the way through; it is based on exploiting the 
other fellow in one form or another. I refuse to ex- 
ploit my fellows along the accepted lines — or any lines. 
I don’t have to ; there are too many other ways of mak- 
ing a living open to me. I don’t care to live fat and 
make some one else foot the bill. But I can exploit the 
resources of nature. And that is my plan. If we 
make money it won’t be filched by a complex process 
from the other fellow’s pockets ; it won’t be wealth 
created by shearing lambs in the market, by sweatshop 
labor, or adulterated food, or exorbitant rental of filthy 
tenements. And I have no illusions about the men I’m 
dealing with. If they undertake to make a get-rich- 
quick scheme of it I’ll knock the whole business in the 
head. I’m not overly anxious to get into it with them. 
But it promises action of some sort — and I have to 
do something till spring.” 

In the spring ! That brief phrase set Hazel to sober 
thinking. With April or May Bill would spread his 
wings for the North. There would be no more staying 
him than the flight of the wild goose to the reedy nest- 
ing grounds could be stayed. Well, a summer in the 
North would not be so bad, she reflected. But she 
hated to think of the isolation. It grieved her to con- 
template exchanging her beautifully furnished apart- 
ment for a log cabin in the woods. There would be a 
dreary relapse into monotony after months of associa- 


A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 


277 


tion with clever people, the swift succession of brilliant 
little functions. It all delighted her; she responded 
to her present surroundings as naturally as a grain of 
wheat responds to the germinating influences of warmth 
and moisture. It did not occur to her that saving Bill 
Wagstaflf’s advent into her life she might have been 
denied all this. Indeed she felt a trifle resentful that 
he should prefer the forested solitudes to the pleasant 
social byways of Granville. 

Still she had hopes. If he plunged into business as- 
sociations with Jimmie Brooks and Paul Lorimer and 
others of that group, there was no telling what might 
happen. His interests might become permanently iden- 
tified with Granville. She loved her big, wide-shouldered 
man, anyway. So she continued to playfully rumple 
his hair and kept her thoughts to herself. 

Bill informed her from time to time as to the progress 
of his venture. Brooks and Lorimer put him in touch 
with two others who were ready to chance money on the 
strength of Bill’s statements. The company was duly 
incorporated, with an authorized capital of one hun- 
dred thousand dollars, five thousand dollars’ worth of 
stock being taken out by each on a cash basis — the 
remaining seventy-five thousand lying in the company 
treasury, to be held or sold for development purposes 
as the five saw fit when work began to show what the 
claims were capable of producing. 

Whitey Lewis set out. Bill stuck a map on their 
living-room wall and pointed oflP each day’s journey 
with a pin. Hazel sometimes studied the map, and 
pitied them. So many miles daily in a dreary waste 


278 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


of snow; nights when the frost thrust its keen-pointed 
lances into their tired bodies ; food cooked with numbed 
fingers ; the dismal howling of wolves ; white frost and 
clinging icicles upon their beards as they trudged across 
trackless areas ; and over all that awesome hush which 
she had learned to dread — breathless, brooding si- 
lence. Gold madness or trail madness, or simply ad- 
venturous unrest.? She could not say. She knew only 
that a certain type of man found pleasure in such mad 
undertakings, bucked hard trails and plunged headlong 
into vast solitudes, and permitted no hardship nor 
danger to turn him back. 

Bill was tinged with that madness for unbeaten trails. 
But surely when a man mated, and had a home and all 
that makes home desirable, he should forsake the old 
ways.? Once when she found him studying the map, 
traversing a route with his forefinger and muttering 
to himself, she had a quick catch at her heart — as 
if hers were already poised to go. And she could not 
follow him. Once she had thought to do that, and 
gloried in the prospect. But his trail, his wilderness 
trail, and his trail gait, were not for any woman to fol- 
low. It was too big a job for any woman. And she 
could not let him go alone. He might never come 
back. 

Not so long since she and Kitty Brooks had been dis- 
cussing a certain couple who had separated. Vesta 
Lorlm.er sat by, listening. 

“How could they help but fail in mutual flight?” 
the Lorimer girl had demanded. “ An eagle mated to 
a domestic fowl ! ” 


A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 


279 


And, watching Bill stare at the map, his body there 
but the soul of him tramping the wild woods, she re- 
called Vesta Lorimer’s characterization of that other 
pair. Surely this man of hers was of the eagle brood. 
But there, in her mind, the simile ended. 

In early March came a telegram from Whitey Lewis 
saying that he had staked the claims, both placer and 
lode ; that he was bound out by the Telegraph Trail to 
file at Hazleton. Bill showed her the message — wired 
from Station Six. 

“ I wish I could have been in on it — that was some 
trip,” he said — and there was a trace of discontent 
in his tone. “ I don’t fancy somebody else pawing my 
chestnuts out of the coals for me. It was sure a man’s 
job to cross the Klappan in the dead of winter.” 

The filing completed, there was ample work in the^ 
way of getting out and whipsawing timber to keep 
the five men busy till spring — the five who were on the 
ground. Lewis sent word that thirty feet of snow lay 
in the gold-bearing branch. And that was the last 
they heard from him. He was a performer, Bill said, 
not a correspondent. 

So in Granville the affairs of the Free Gold Mining 
Company remained at a standstill until the spring 
floods should peel off the winter blanket of the North. 
Hazel was fully occupied, and Bill dwelt largely with 
his books, or sketched and figured on operations at 
the claims. Their domestic affairs moved with the 
smoothness of a perfectly balanced machine. To the 
very uttermost Hazel enjoyed the well-appointed or- 
derliness of it all, the unruffled placidity of an existence 


28 o 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


where the unexpected, the disagreeable, the uncouth, 
was wholly eliminated, where all the strange shifts and 
struggles of her two years beyond the Rockies were 
altogether absent and impossible. Bill’s views he kept 
largely to himself. And Hazel began to nurse the idea 
that he was looking upon civilization with a kindlier 
eye. 

Ultimately, spring overspread the eastern provinces. 
And when the snows of winter successively gave way 
to muddy streets and then to clean pavements in the 
city of Granville, a new gilt sign was lettered across 
the windows of the brokerage office in which Paul Lori- 
mer was housed. 

FREE GOLD MINING COMPANY 

P. H. Lorimer, Pres. J. L. Brooks, Sec.-Treas. 

William WagstaflF, Manager. 

So it ran. Bill was commissioned in the army of 
business at last. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


A BUSINESS JOURNEY 

“ I have to go to the Klappan,” Bill apprised his 
wife one evening. “ Want to come along.? ” 

Hazel hesitated. Her first instinctive feeling was 
one of reluctance to retrace that nerve-trying trail. 
But neither did she wish to be separated from him. 

I see you don’t,” he observed dryly. “ Well, I 
can’t say that I blame you. It’s a stiff trip. If your 
wind and muscle are in as poor shape as mine, I guess 
it would do you up — the effort would be greater than 
any possible pleasure.” 

“ I’m sorry I can’t feel any enthusiasm for such a 
journey,” she remarked candidly. “ I could go as far 
as the coast with you, and meet you there when you 
come out. How long do you expect to be in there .? ” 

“ I don’t know exactly,” he replied. “ I’m not go- 
ing in from the coast, though. I’m taking the Ash- 
croft-Fort George Trail. I have to take in a pack 
train and more men and get work started on a decent 
scale.” 

“ But you won’t have to stay there all summer and 
oversee the work, will you.? ” she inquired anxiously. 

I should,” he said. 

For a second or two he drummed on the table top. 


282 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ I should do that. It’s what I had in mind when 
I started this thing,” he said wistfully. “ I thought 
we’d go in this spring and rush things through the 
good weather, and come out ahead of the snow. We 
could stay a while at the ranch, and break up the winter 
with a jaunt here or some place.” 

“ But is there any real necessity for you to stay on 
the ground ” She pursued her own line of thought. 

“ I should think an undertaking of this size would jus- 
tify hiring an expert to take charge of the actual mining 
operations. Won’t you have this end of it to look 
after.? ” 

“ Lorimer and Brooks are eminently capable of up- 
holding the dignity and importance of that sign they’ve 
got smeared across the windows downtown,” he ob- 
served curtly. ‘‘ The chief labor of the office they’ve 
set up will be to divide the proceeds. The work will , 
be done and the money made in the Klappan Range. 
You sabe that, don’t you.?” 

‘‘ I’m not stupid,” she pouted. 

“ I know you’re not, little person,” he said quietly. 

‘‘ But you’ve changed a heap in the last few months, i 
You don’t seem to be my pal any more. You’ve fallen 
in love with this butterfly life. You appear to like 
me just as much as ever, but if you could you’d sen- 
tence me to this kid-glove existence for the rest of my 
natural life. Great Caesar’s ghost ! ” he burst out. 

I’ve laid around like a well-fed poodle for seven 
months. And look at me — I’m mush ! Ten miles 
with a sixty-pound pack would make my tongue hang 
out. I’m thick-winded, and twenty pounds over- 


A BUSINESS JOURNEY 283 

weight — and you talk calmly about my settling down 
to office work ! ” 

His semi-indignation, curiously enough, affected 
Hazel as being altogether humorous. She had a smile- 
compelling vision of that straight, lean-limbed, power- 
ful body developing a protuberant waistline and a 
double chin. That was really funny, so far-fetched 
did it seem. And she laughed. Bill froze into rigid 
silence. 

“ I’m going to-morrow,” he said suddenly. “ I 
think, on the whole, it’ll be just as well if you don’t go. 
Stay here and enjoy yourself. I’ll transfer some more 
money to your account. I think I’ll drop down to the 
club.” 

She followed him out into the hall, and, as he 
wriggled into his coat, she had an impulse to throw her 
arms around his neck and declare, in all sincerity, that 
she would go to the Klappan or to the north pole or 
any place on earth with him, if he wanted her. But 
by some peculiar feminine reasoning she reflected in 
the same instant that if Bill were away from her in a 
few weeks he would be all the more glad to get back. 
That closed her mouth. She felt too secure in his 
affection to believe it could be otherwise. And then 
she would cheerfully capitulate and go back with him 
to his beloved North, to the Klappan or the ranch or 
wherever he chose. It was not wise to be too meek 
or obedient where a husband was concerned. That 
was another mite of wisdom she had garnered from the 
wives of her circle. 

So she kissed Bill good-by at the station next day 


284 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


with perfect good humor and no parting emotion of any 
particular keenness. And if he were a trifle sober he 
showed no sign of resentment, nor uttered any futile 
wishes that she could accompany him. 

“ So long,” he said from the car steps. “ I’ll keep 
in touch — all I can.” 

Then he was gone. 

Somehow, his absence made less difference than Hazel 
had anticipated. She had secretly expected to be very 
lonely at first. And she was not. She began to real- 
ize that, unconsciously, they had of late so arranged 
their manner of life that separation was a question of 
degree rather than kind. It seemed that she could 
never quite forego the impression that Bill was near at 
hand. She always thought of him as downtown or in 
the living-room, with his feet up on the mantel and a 
cigar in his mouth. Even when in her hand she held 
a telegram dated at a point five hundred or a thousand 
miles or double that distance away she did not experi- 
ence the feeling of complete bodily absence. She al- 
ways felt as if he were near. Only at night, when there 
was no long arm to pillow her head, no good-night kiss 
as she dozed into slumber, she missed him, realized that 
he was far away. Even when the days marched past, 
mustering themselves in weekly and monthly platoons 
and Bill still remained in the Klappan, she experienced 
no dreary leadenness of soul. Her time passed pleas- 
antly enough. 

Early in June came a brief wire from Station Six. 
Three weeks later the Free Gold Mining Company set 
up a mild ripple of excitement along Broad Street by 


A BUSINESS JOURNEY 285 

exhibiting in their office window a forty-pound heap 
of coarse gold; raw, yellow gold, just as it had come 
from the sluice. Every day knots of men stood gazing 
at the treasure. The Granville papers devoted sundry 
columns to this remarkably successful enterprise of its 
local business men. Bill had forwarded the first 
clean-up. 

And close on the heels of this — ten days later, to 
be exact — he came home. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE BOMB 

“ You great bear,” Hazel laughed, in the shelter of 
his encircling arms. “ My, it’s good to see you again.” j 

She pushed herself back a little and surveyed him ad- 
miringly, with a gratified sense of proprietorship. The 
cheeks of him were tanned to a healthy brown, his eyes 
clear and shining. The offending flesh had fallen away 
on the strenuous paths of the Klappan. He radiated 
boundless vitality, strength, alertness, that perfect co- 
ordination of mind and body that is bred of faring re- 
sourcefully along rude ways. Few of his type trod j 
the streets of Granville. It was a product solely of the J 
outer places. And for the time being the old, vivid i 
emotion surged strong within her. She thrilled at the j 
touch of his hand, was content to lay her head on his 
shoulder and forget everything in the joy of his phys- 
ical nearness. But the maid announced dinner, and j 
her man must be fed. He had missed luncheon on the 
train, he told her, by reason of an absorbing game of 
whist. 

“ Come, then,” said she. “ You must be starving.” 

They elected to spend the evening quietly at home, 
as they used to do. To Hazel it seemed quite like old 
times. Bill told her of the Klappan country, and their 
prospects at the mine. i 


THE BOMB 287 

‘‘ It’s going to be a mighty big thing,” he declared. 

“ I’m so glad,” said Hazel. 

“ We’ve got a group of ten claims. Whitey Lewis 
and the original stakers hold an interest in their claims. 
I, acting as agent for these other fellows in the com- 
pany, staked five more. I took in eight more men — 
and, believe me, things were humming when I left. 
Lewis is a great rustler. He had out lots of timber, 
and we put in a wing dam three hundred feet long, so 
she can fiood and be darned; they’ll keep the sluice 
working just the same. And that quartz lead will 
justify a fifty-thousand-dollar mill. So I’m told by an 
expert I took in to look it over. And, say, I went in 
by the ranch. Old Jake has a fine garden. He’s still 
pegging away with the mule ‘ und Gretchen, der cow.’ 
I offered him a chance to make a fat little stake at the 
mine, but he didn’t want to leave the ranch. Great 
old feller, Jake. Something of a philosopher in his 
way. Pretty wise old head. He’ll make good, all 
right.” y 

In the morning. Bill ate his breakfast and started 
downtown. 

That’s the dickens of being a business man,” he 
complained to Hazel, in the hallway. “ It rides a man, 
once it gets hold of him. I’d rather get a machine 
and go joy riding with you than anything else. But 
I have to go and make a long-winded report; and I 
suppose those fellows will want to talk gold by the 
yard. Adios, little person. I’ll get out for lunch, 
business or no business.” 

Eleven-thirty brought him home, preoccupied and 


288 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


frowning. And he carried his frown and his preoccu- 
pation to the table. 

“ Whatever is the matter, Bill.^ ” Hazel anxiously 
inquired. 

“ Oh, I’ve got a nasty hunch that there’s a nigger in 
the woodpile,” he replied. 

“ What woodpile ? ” she asked. 

“ I’ll tell you more about it to-night,” he said bluntly. 
“ I’m going to pry something loose this afternoon or 
know the reason why.” 

‘‘ Is something the matter about the mine ? ” she per- 
sisted. 

“ No,” he answered grimly. “ There’s nothing the 
matter with the mine. It’s the mining company.” 

And that was all he vouchsafed. He finished his 
luncheon and left the house. He was scarcely out of 
sight when Jimmie Brooks’ runabout drew up at the 
curb. A half minute later he was ushered into the liv- 
ing-room. 

‘‘Bill in?” was his first query. 

“ No, he left just a few minutes ago,” Hazel told 
him. 

Mr. Brooks, a short, heavy-set, neatly dressed gentle- 
man, whose rather weak blue eyes loomed preternatu- 
rally large and protuberant behind pince-nez that 
straddled an insignificant snub nose, took off his glasses 
and twiddled them in his white, well-kept fingers. 

“ Ah, too bad ! ” he murmured. “ Thought I’d 
catch him. 

“ By the way,” he continued, after a pause, “ you 
- — ah — well, frankly, I have reason to believe that you 


THE BOMB 


289 


have a good deal of influence with your husband in 
business matters, Mrs. Wagstaff. Kitty says so, and 
she don’t make mistakes very often in sizing up a situa- 
tion.” 

“ Well, I don’t know ; perhaps I have.” Hazel smiled 
noncommittally. She wondered what had led Kitty 
Brooks to that conclusion. “ Why.? ” 

“Well — ah — you see,” he began rather lamely. 

“ The fact is — I hope you’ll regard this as strictly 
confidential, Mrs. Wagstaff. I wouldn’t want Bill to 
think I, or any of us, was trying to bring pressure on 
him. But the fact is. Bill’s got a mistaken impression 
about the way we’re conducting the financial end of this 
mining proposition. You understand? Very able 
man, your husband, but headstrong as the deuce. I’m 
afraid — to speak frankly — he’ll create a lot of un- 
pleasantness. Might disrupt the company, in fact, if 
he sticks to the position he took this morning. Thought 
I’d run in and talk it over with him. Fellow’s generally 
in a good humor, you know, when he’s lunched comfort- 
ably at home.” 

“ I’m quite in the dark,” Hazel confessed. “ Bill 
seemed a trifle put out about something. He didn’t say 
what it was about.” 

“ Shall I explain? ” Mr. Brooks suggested. “ You’d 
understand — and you might be able to help. I don’t 
as a rule believe in bringing business into the home, but 
this bothers me. I hate to see a good thing go wrong.” 

“Explain, by all means,” Hazel promptly replied. • 
“ If I can help, I’ll be glad to.” 

“ Thank you.” Mr. Brooks polished his glasses in- 


290 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


dustriously for a second and replaced them with 
painstaking exactitude. “Now — ah — this is the sit- 
uation : When the company was formed, five of us, in- 
cluding your husband, took up enough stock to finance 
the preliminary work of the undertaking. The remain- 
ing stock, seventy-five thousand dollars in amount, was 
left in the treasury, to be held or put on the market as 
the situation warranted. Bill was quite conservative in 
his first statements concerning the property, and we all 
felt inclined to go slow. But when Bill got out there on 
the ground and the thing began to pay enormously right 
from the beginning, we — that is, the four of us here, 
decided we ought to enlarge our scope. With the first 
clean-up. Bill forwarded facts and figures to show that 
we had a property far beyond our greatest expecta- 
tions. And, of course, we saw at once that the thing 
was ridiculously undercapitalized. By putting the bal- 
ance of the stock on the market, we could secure funds 
to work on a much larger scale. Why, this first ship- 
ment of gold is equal to an annual dividend of ten per 
cent on four hundred thousand dollars capital. It’s im- 
mense, for six weeks’ work. 

“ So we held a meeting and authorized the secretary 
to sell stock. Naturally, your husband wasn’t cogni- 
zant of this move, for the simple reason that there was 
no way of reaching him — and his interests were thor- 
oughly protected, anyway. The stock was listed on 
Change. A good bit was disposed of privately. We 
now have a large fund in the treasury. It’s a cinch. 
We’ve got the property, and it’s rich enough to pay 
dividends on a million. The decision of the stockholders 


THE BOMB 


2gi 

is unanimously for enlargement of the capital stock. 
The quicker we get that property to its maximum out- 
put the more we make, you see. There’s a fine vein of 
quartz to develop, expensive machinery to install. It’s 
no more than fair that these outsiders who are clamor- 
ing to get aboard should pay their share of the expense 
of organization and promotion. You understand.? 
You follow me.? ” 

“ Certainly,” Hazel answered. “ But what is the dif- 
ficulty with Bill.? ” 

Mr. Brooks once more had recourse to polishing his 
pince-nez. 

“ Bill is opposed to the whole plan,” he said, pursing 
up his lips with evident disapproval of Bill Wagstaff 
and all his works. “ He seems to feel that we should 
not have taken this step. He declares that no more 
stock must be sold ; that there must be no enlargement 
of capital. In fact, that we must peg along in the little 
one-horse way we started. And that would be a shame. 
We could make the Free Gold Mining Company the big- 
gest thing on the map, and put ourselves all on Easy 
Street.” 

He spread his hands in a gesture of real regret. 

Bill’s a fine fellow,” he said, ‘‘ and one of my best 
friends. But he’s a hard man to do business with. He 
takes a very peculiar view of the matter. I’m afraid 
he’ll queer the company if he stirs up trouble over this. 
That’s why I hope you’ll use whatever influence you 
have, to induce him to withdraw his opposition.” 

“ But,” Hazel murmured, in some perplexity, “ from 
what little I know of corporations, I don’t see how he 


292 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

can set up any difficulty. If a majority of the stock- 
holders decide to do anything, that settles it, doesn’t it? 
Bill is a minority of one, from what you say. And I 
don’t see what difference his objections make, anyway. 
How can he stop you from taking any line of action 
whatever? ” 

“ Oh, not that at all,” Brooks hastily assured. “ Of 
course, we can outvote him, and put it through. But 
we want him with us, don’t you see? We’ve a high 
opinion of his ability. He’s the sort of man who gets 
results; practical, you know; knows mining to a T. 
Only he shies at our financial method. And if he began 
any foolish litigation, or silly rumors got started about 
trouble among the company officers, it’s bound to hurt 
the stock. It’s all right, I assure you. We’re not 
foisting a wildcat on the market. We’ve got the goods. 
Bill admits that. It’s the regular method, not only le- 
gitimate, but good finance. Every dollar’s worth of 
stock sold has the value behind it. Distributes the risk 
a little more, that’s all, and gives the company a fund 
to operate successfully. 

‘‘ If Bill mentions it, you might suggest that he look 
into the matter a little more fully before he takes any 
definite action,” Brooks concluded, rising. “ I must 
get down to the office. It’s his own interests I’m think- 
ing of, as much as my own. Of course, he couldn’t 
block a reorganization — but we want to satisfy him in 
every particular, and, at the same time, carry out these 
plans. It’s a big thing for all of us. A big thing, I 
assure you.” 

He rolled away in his car, and Hazel watched him 


THE BOMB 


293 


from the window, a trifle puzzled. She recalled Bill’s 
remark at luncheon. In the light of Brooks’ explana- 
tion, she could see nothing wrong. On the other hand, 
she knew Bill WagstafF was not prone to jump at rash 
conclusions. It was largely his habit to give others the 
benefit of the doubt. If he objected to certain manipu- 
lations of the Free Gold Mining Company, his objection 
was likely to be based on substantial grounds. But 
then, as Brooks had observed, or, rather, inferred. Bill 
was not exactly an expert on finance, and this new deal 
savored of pure finance — a term which she had heard 
Bill scoff at more than once. At any rate, she hoped 
nothing disagreeable would come of it. 

So she put the whole matter out of her mind. She 
had an engagement with a dressmaker, and an invitation 
to afternoon tea following on that. She dressed, and 
went whole-heartedly about her own affairs. 

Dinner time was drawing close when she returned 
home. She sat down by a window that overlooked the 
street to watch for Bill. As a general thing he was 
promptness personified, and since he was but twenty- 
four hours returned from a three months’ absence, she 
felt that he would not linger — and Granville’s business 
normally ceased at five o’clock. 

Six passed. The half-hour chime struck on the man- 
tel clock. Hazel grew impatient, petulant, aggrieved. 
Dinner would be served in twenty minutes. Still there 
was no sig^i of him. And for lack of other occupation 
she went into the hall and got the evening paper, which 
the carrier had just delivered. 

A staring headline on the front page stiffened her to 


294 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


scandalized attention. Straight across the tops of two 
columns it ran, a facetious caption: 

WILLIAM WAGSTAFF IS A BEAR 

Under that the subhead: 

Husky Mining Man Tumbles Prices and Brokers. 

Whips Four men in Broad Street OflSce. Slugs 
Another on Change. Llis Mighty Fists Sub- 
due Society’s Finest. Finally Lands in Jail. 

The body of the article Hazel read in what a sob sis- 
ter would describe as a state of mingled emotions. 

William Wagstaff is a mining gentleman from the northern 
wilds of British Columbia. He is a big man, a natural-born 
fighter. To prove this he inflicted a black eye and a split lip 
on Paul Lorimer, a broken nose and sundry bruises on James 
L. Brooks. Also Allen T. Bray and Edward Gurney Parkinson 
suffered certain contusions in the melee. The fracas occurred in 
the office of the Free Gold Mining Company, 1546 Broad Street, 
at three-thirty this afternoon. While hammering the brokers 
a police officer arrived on the scene and Wagstaff was duly 
escorted to the city bastile. Prior to the general encounter in 
the Broad Street office Wagstaff walked into the Stock Exchange^ 
and made statements about the Free Gold Mining Company 
which set all the brokers by the ears, Lorimer was on the floor, 
and received his discolored optic there. 

Lorimer is a partner in the brokerage firm of Bray, Park- 
inson & Co., and is president of the Free Gold Mining Com- 
pany. Brooks is manager of the Acme Advertisers, and sec- 
retary of Free Gold. Bray and Parkinson are stockholders, and 
Wagstaff’ is a stockholder and also manager of tlie Free Gold 
properties in B. C. All are well known about tcwn. 

A reporter was present when Wagstaff walked on the floor 
of the Stock Exchange. He strode up to the post where Lori- 
mer was transacting business. 


THE BOMB 


295 


“ I serve notice on you right now,” he said loudly and angrily, 
“that if you sell another dollar’s worth of Free Gold stock. I’ll 
put you out of business.” 

Lorimer appeared to lose his temper. Some word was passed 
which further incensed Wagstaif. He smote the broker and the 
broker smote the floor. Wagstaif ’s punch would do credit to a 
champion pugilist, from the execution it wrought. He imme- 
diately left the Stock Exchange, and not long afterward Broad 
Street was electrified by sounds of combat in the Free Gold of- 
fice. It is conceded that Wagstaff had the situation and his 
three opponents weU in hand when the cop arrived. 

None of the men concerned would discuss the matter. From 
the remarks dropped by Wagstaff, however, it appears that the 
policy of marketing Free Gold stock was inaugurated without 
his knowledge or consent. 

Be that as it may, all sorts of rumors are in circulation, and 
Free Gold stock, which has been sold during the past week as 
high as a dollar forty, found few takers at par when Change 
closed. There has been a considerable speculative movement in 
the stock, and the speculators are beginning to wonder if there 
is a screw loose in the company affairs. 

Wagstafi^s case will come up to-morrow forenoon. A charge 
of disturbing the peace was placed against him. He gave a 
cash bond and was at once released. When the hearing comes 
some of the parties to the affair may perchance divulge what lay 
at the bottom of the row. 

Any fine within the power of the court to impose is a mere 
bagatelle, compared to the distinction of scientifically man- 
handling four of society’s finest in one afternoon. As one by- 
stander remarked in the classic phraseology of the street: 

“Wagstaft’s a bear!” 

The brokers concerned might consider this to have a double 
meaning. 

Hazel dropped the paper, mortified and wrathful. 
The city jail seemed the very Pit itself to her. And 
the lurid publicity, the lifted eyebrows of her friends, 
maddened her in prospect. Plain street brawling, such 
as one might expect from a cabman or a taxi mahout, 


296 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

not from a man like her husband. She involuntarily 
assigned the blame to him. Not for the cause — the 
cause was of no importance whatever to her — but for 
the act itself. Their best friends! She could hardly 
realize it. Jimmie Brooks, jovial Jimmie, with a 
broken nose and sundry bruises! And Paul Lorimer, 
distinguished Paul, who had the courtly bearing which 
was the despair of his fellows, and the manner of a 
dozen generations of culture wherewith to charm the 
women of his acquaintance. He with a black eye and 
a split lip ! So the paper stated. It was vulgar. 
Brutal! The act of a cave man. 

She was on the verge of tears. 

And just at that moment the door opened, and in 
walked Bill, 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE NOTE DISCORDANT 

Bill had divested himself of the scowl. He smiled as 
a man who has solved some knotty problem to his entire 
satisfaction. Moreover, he bore no mark of conflict, 
none of the conventional scars of a rough-and-:tumble 
fight. His clothing was in perfect order, his tie and 
collar properly arranged, as a gentleman’s tie and col- 
lar should be. For a moment Hazel found herself be- 
lieving the Herald story a pure canard. But as he 
walked across the room her searching gaze discovered 
that the knuckles of both his hands were bruised and 
bloody, the skin broken. She picked up the paper. 

‘‘ Is this true ? ” she asked tremulously, pointing to 
the offending headlines. 

Bill frowned. 

“ Substantially correct,” he answered coolly. 

“ Bill, how could you ? ” she cried. “ It’s simply 
disgraceful. Brawling in public like any saloon loafer, 
and getting in jail and all. Haven’t you any consid- 
eration for me — any pride.? ” 

His eyes narrowed with an angry glint. 

“ Yes,” he said deliberately. ‘‘ I have. Pride in my 
word as a man. A sort of pride that won’t allow any 
bunch of lily-fingered crooks to make me a party to any 
dirty deal. I don’t propose to get the worst of it in 


298 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

that way. I won’t allow myself to be tarred with their 
stick.” 

‘‘ But they’re not trying to give you the worst of it,” 
she burst out. Visions of utter humiliation arose to 
confront and madden her. “ You’ve insulted and 
abused our best friends — to say nothing of giving us 
all the benefit of newspaper scandal. We’ll be notori- 
ous ! ” 

“Best friends God save the mark!” he snorted 
contemptuously. “ Our best friends, as you please to 
call them, are crooks, thieves, and liars. They’re rot- 
ten. They stink with their moral rottenness. And 
they have the gall to call it good business.” 

“Just because their ' business methods don’t agree 
with your peculiar ideas is no reason why you should 
call names,” she flared. “ Mr. Brooks called just after 
you left at noon. He told me something about this, and 
assured me that you would find yourself mistaken if 
you’d only take pains to think it over. I don’t believe 
such men as they are would stoop to anything crooked. 
Even if the opportunity offered, they have too much at 
stake in this community. They couldn’t afford to be 
crooked.” 

“ So Brooks came around to talk it over with you, 
eh.? ” Bill sneered. “ Told you it was all on the square, 
did he.? Explained it all very plausibly, I suppose. 
Probably suggested that you try smoothing me down, 
too. It would be like ’em.” 

“ He did explain about this stock-selling business,” 
Hazel replied defensively. “ And I can’t see why you 
find it necessary to make a fuss. I don’t see where the 


THE NOTE DISCORDANT 


299 


cheating and crookedness comes in. Everybody who 
buys stock gets their money’s worth, don’t they.? But 
I don’t care anything about your old mining deal. It’s 
this fighting and quarreling with people who are not 
used to that sort of brute action — and the horrid 
things they’ll say and think about us.” 

“ About you, you mean — as the wife of such a boor 
— that’s what’s rubbing you raw,” Bill flung out pas- 
sionately. “ You’re acquiring the class psychology 
good and fast. Did you ever think of anybody but 
yourself.? Have I ever betrayed symptoms of idiocy.? 
Do you think it natural or even likely for me to raise 
the devil in a business affair like this out of sheer mal- 
ice.? Don’t I generally have a logical basis for any 
position I take.? Yet you don’t wait or ask for any ex- 
planation from me. You stand instinctively with the 
crowd that has swept you off your feet in the last six 
months. You take another man’s word that it’s all 
right and I’m all wrong, without waiting to hear my side 
of it. And the petty-larceny incident of my knocking 
down two or three men and being under arrest as much 
as thirty minutes looms up before you as the utter 
depths of disgrace. Disgrace to you ! It’s all you — 
you! How do you suppose it strikes me to have my 
wife take sides against me on snap judgment like that.? 
It shows a heap of faith and trust and loyalty, doesn’t 
it.? Oh, it makes me real proud and glad of my mate. 
It does. By thunder, if Granville had ever treated me 
as it tried to treat you one time, according to your own 
account, I’d wipe my feet on them at every oppor- 
tunity.” 


300 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


If you’d explain,” Hazel began hesitatingly. She j 
was thoroughly startled at the smoldering wrath that ] 
flared out in this speech of his. She bitterly resented 
being talked to in that fashion. It was unjust. Par- 
ticularly that last fling. And she was not taking sides. 

She refused to admit that — even though she had a dis- 
turbing consciousness that her attitude could scarcely 
be construed otherwise. 

“ I’ll explain nothing,” Bill flashed stormily. ‘‘ Not 
at this stage of the game. I’m through explaining. 

I’m going to act. I refuse to be raked over the coals 
like a naughty child, and then asked to tell why I did it. 

I’m right, and when I know I’m right I’ll go the limit. i 
I’m going to take the kinks out of this Free Gold deal 
inside of forty-eight hours. Then I’m through with j. 
Granville. Hereafter I intend to fight shy of a breed \ 
of dogs who lose every sense of square dealing when j 
there is a bunch of money in sight. I shall be ready to 
leave here within a week. And I want you to be ready, j 
too.” j 

“ I won’t,” she cried, on the verge of hysterics. “ I \ 
won’t go back to that cursed silence and loneliness. j 
You made this trouble here, not I. I won’t go back to 
Pine River, or the Klappan. I won’t, I tell you ! ” : 

Bill stared at her moodily for a second. 

“ Just as you please,” he said quietly. 

He walked into the spare bedroom. Hazel heard the 
door close gently behind him, heard the soft click of a 
well-oiled lock. Then she slumped, gasping, in the j 
wide-armed chair by the window, and the hot tears came j 
in a blinding flood. | 


CHAPTER XXX 


THE AFTERMATH 

They exchanged only bare civilities at the breakfast 
table, and Bill at once went downtown. When he was 
gone, Hazel fidgeted uneasily about the rooms. She 
had only a vague idea of legal processes, having never 
seen the inside of a courtroom. She wondered what 
penalty would be inflicted on Bill, whether he would be 
fined or sent to prison. Surely it was a dreadful thing 
to batter men like Brooks and Lorimer and Parkinson. 
They might even make it appear that Bill had tried to 
murder them. Her imagination magnified and dis- 
torted the incident out of all proportion. 

And brooding over these things, she decided to go 
and talk it over with Kitty Brooks. Kitty would not 
blame her for these horrid man troubles. 

But she was mistaken there. Kitty was all up in 
arms. She was doubly injured. Her husband had 
suffered insult and brutal injury. Moreover, he was 
threatened with financial loss. Perhaps that threat- 
ened wound in the pocketbook loomed larger than the 
physical hurt. At any rate, she vented some of her 
spleen on Hazel. 

“ Your husband started this mining thing,” she de- 
clared heatedly. “ Jimmie says that if he persists in 
trying to turn things upside down it will mean a loss of 


302 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


thousands. And we haven’t any money to lose — I’m 
sure Jimmie has worked hard for what he’s got. I’m 
simply sick over it. It’s bad enough to have one’s hus- 
band brought home looking as if he’d been slugged by 
footpads, and to have the papers go on about it so. 
But to have a big loss inflicted on us just when we were 
really beginning to get ahead, is too much. I wish 
you’d never introduced your miner to us.” 

That speech, of course, obliterated friendship on the 
spot, as far as Hazel was concerned. Even though she 
was quite prepared to have Bill blamed for the trouble, 
did in fact so blame him herself, she could not stomach 
Kitty’s language nor attitude. But the humiliation 
of the interview she chalked up against Bill. She went 
home with a red spot glowing on either cheekbone. A 
rather incoherent telephone conversation with Mrs. Al- 
len T. Bray, in which that worthy matron declared her 
husband prostrated from his injuries, and in the same 
breath intimated that Mr. Wagstaff would be compelled 
to make ample reparation for his ruffianly act, did not 
tend to soothe her. ' 

Bill failed to appear at luncheon. During the after- 
noon an uncommon number of her acquaintances dropped 
in. In the tactful manner of their kind they buzzed 
with the one absorbing topic. Some were vastly amused. 
Some were sympathetic. One and all they were con- 
sumed with curiosity for detailed inside information on 
the Free Gold squabble. One note rang consistently in 
their gossipy song: The Free Gold Company was go- 
ing to lose a pot of money in some manner, as a conse- 
quence of the aflPair. Mr. Wagstaff had put some sur- 


THE AFTERMATH 


303 


prising sort of spoke in the company’s wheel. They 
had that from their husbands who trafficked on Broad 
Street. By what power he had accomplished this re- 
mained a mystery to the ladies. Singly and collectively 
they drove Hazel to the verge of distraction. When 
the house was at last clear of them she could have wept. 
Through no fault of her own she had given Granville 
another choice morsel to roll under its gossipy tongue. 

So that when six o’clock brought Bill home, she was 
coldly disapproving of him and his affairs in their en- 
tirety, and at no pains to hide her feelings. He fol- 
lowed her into the living-room when the uncomfortable 
meal — uncomfortable by reason of the surcharged at- 
mosphere — was at an end. 

“ Let’s get down to bed rock. Hazel,” he said gently. 
‘‘ Doesn’t it seem rather foolish to let a bundle of out- 
side troubles set up so much friction between us two? 
I don’t want to stir anything up ; I don’t want to quar- 
rel, But I can’t stand this coldness and reproach from 
you. It’s unjust, for one thing. And it’s, so unwise 
— if we value our happiness as a thing worth making 
some effort to save.” 

“ I don’t care to discuss it at all,” she flared up. 
“ I’ve heard nothing else all day but this miserable min- 
ing business and your ruffianly method of settling a dis- 
pute. I’d rather not talk about it.” 

“ But we must talk about it,” he persisted patiently. 
« I’ve got to show you how the thing stands, so that you 
can see for yourself where your misunderstanding 
comes in. You can’t get to the bottom of anything 
without more or less talk.” 


NORTH OR FIFTY-THREE 


304 

“ Talk to yourself, then,” she retorted ungraciously. 
And with that she ran out of the room. 

But she had forgotten or underestimated the catlike 
quickness of her man. He caught her in the doorway, 
and the grip of his fingers on her arm brought a cry of 
pain. 

“ Forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt,” he said con- 
tritely. “ Be a good girl. Hazel, and let’s get our feet 
on earth again. Sit down and put your arm around my 
neck and be my pal, like you used to be. We’ve got no 
business nursing these hard feelings. It’s folly. I 
haven’t committed any crime. I’ve only stood for a 
square deal. Come on; bury the hatchet, little per- 
son.” 

“ Let me go,” she sobbed, struggling to be free. ‘‘ I 
h-hate you ! ” 

“ Please, little person. I can’t eat humble pie more 
than once or twice.” 

“ Let me go,” she panted. ‘‘ I don’t want you to 
touch me.” 

“ Listen to me,” he said sternly. “ I’ve stood about 
all of your nonsense I’m able to stand. I’ve had to 
fight a pack of business wolves to keep them from pick- 
ing my carcass, and, what’s more important to me, to 
keep them from handing a raw deal to five men who 
wallowed through snow and frost and all kinds of hard- 
ship to make these sharks a fortune. I’ve got down to 
their level and fought them with their own weapons — ' 
and the thing is settled. I said last night I’d be 
through here inside a week. I’m through now — 
through here. I have business in the Klappan; to 


THE AFTERMATH 


305 


complete this thing I’ve set my hand to. Then I’m go- 
ing to the ranch and try to get the bad taste out of my 
mouth. I’m going to-morrow. I’ve no desire or in- 
tention to coerce you. You’re my wife, and your place 
is with me, if you care anything about me. And I 
want you. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t be 
begging you like this if I didn’t. I haven’t changed, 
nor had my eyes dazzled by any false gods. But it’s 
up to you. I don’t bluff. I’m going, and if I have to 
go without you I won’t come back. Think it over, and 
just ask yourself honestly if it’s worth while.” 

He drew her up close to him and kissed her on one 
anger-flushed cheek, and then, as he had done the night 
before, walked straight away to the bedroom and closed 
the door behind him. 

Hazel slept little that night. A horrid weight 
seemed to rest suffocatingly upon her. More than once 
she had an impulse to creep in there where Bill lay 
and forget it all in the sweep of that strong arm. But 
she choked back the impulse angrily. She would not 
forgive him. He had made her suffer. For his high- 
handedness she would make him suffer in kind. At 
least, she would not crawl to him begging forgiveness. 

When sunrise laid a yellow beam, all full of dancing 
motes, across her bed, she heard Bill stir, heard him 
moving about the apartment with restless steps. After 
a time she also heard the unmistakable sound of a trunk 
lid thrown back, and the movements of him as he gath- 
ered his clothes — so she surmised. But she did not 
rise till the maid rapped on her door with the eight- 
o’clock salutation: 


3o6 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


“ Breakfast, ma’am.” 

They made a pretense of eating. Hazel sought a 
chair in the living-room. A book lay open in her lap. 
But the print ran into blurred lines. She could not fol- 
low the sense of the words. An incessant turmoil of 
thought harassed her. Bill passed through the room 
once or twice. Determinedly she ignored him. The 
final snap of the lock on his trunk came to her at last, 
the bumping sounds of its passage to the hall. Then a 
burly expressman shouldered* it into his wagon and 
drove away. 

A few minutes after that Bill came in and took a seat 
facing her. 

“What are you going to do. Hazel?” he asked so- 
berly. 

“ Nothing,” she curtly replied. 

“ Are you going to sit down and fold your hands and 
let our air castles come tumbling about our ears, with- 
out making the least effort to prevent? ” he continued 
gently. “ Seems to me that’s not like you at all. I 
never thought you were a quitter.” 

“ I’m not a quitter,” she flung back resentfully. “ I 
refuse to be browbeaten, that’s all. There appears to 
be only one choice — to follow you like a lamb. And 
I’m not lamblike. I’d say that you are the quitter. 
You have stirred up all this trouble here between us. 
Now you’re running away from it. That’s how it looks 
to me. Go on! I can get along.” 

“ I dare say you can,” he commented wearily. 
“ Most of us can muddle along somehow, no matter what 
happens. But it seems a pity, little person. We had 


THE AFTERMATH 


307 


all the chance in the world. You’ve developed an ab- 
normal streak lately. If you’d just break away and 
come back with me. You don’t know what good medi- 
cine those old woods are. Won’t you try it a while? ” 

“ I am not by nature fitted to lead the hermit exist- 
ence,” she returned sarcasticaHy. 

And even while her lips were uttering these various 
unworthy little bitternesses she inwardly wondered at 
her own words. It was not what she would have said, 
not at all what she was half minded to say. But a devil 
of perverseness spurred her. She was full of protest 
against everything. 

I wish we’d had a baby,” Bill murmured softly. 
“ You’d be different. You’d have something to live for 
besides this frothy, neurotic existence that has poisoned 
you against the good, clean, healthy way of life. I wish 
we’d had a kiddie. We’d have a fighting chance for 
happiness now; something to keep us sane, something 
outside of our own ego to influence us.” 

“ Thank God there isn’t one ! ” she muttered. 

“ Ah, well,” Bill sighed, “ I guess there is no use. I 
guess we can’t get together on anything. There 
doesn’t seem to be any give-and-take between us any 
longer.” 

He rose and walked to the door. With his hand on 
the knob, he turned. 

“ I have fixed things at the bank for you,” he said 
abruptly. 

Then he walked out, without waiting for an answer. 

She heard the soft whir of the elevator. A minute 
later she saw him on the sidewalk. He had an overcoat 


3o8 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


on his arm, a suit case in his hand. She saw him lift a 
finger to halt a passing car. 

It seemed incredible that he should go like that. 
Surely he would come back at noon or at dinner time. 
She had always felt that under his gentleness there was 
iron. But deep in her heart she had never believed him 
so implacable of purpose where she was concerned. 

She waited wearily, stirring with nervous restless- 
ness from room to room. 

Luncheon passed. The afternoon dragged by to a 
close. Dusk fell. And when the night wrapped Gran- 
ville in its velvet mantle, and the street lights blinked 
away in shining rows, she cowered, sobbing, in the big 
chair by the window. 

He was gone. 

Gone, without even saying good-by! 


CHAPTER XXXI 


A LETTER FROM BILL 

All through the long night she lay awake, struggling 
with the incredible fact that Bill had left her ; trying to 
absolve herself from blame; flaring up in anger at his 
unyielding attitude, even while she was sorely conscious 
that she herself had been stubbornly unyielding. If he 
had truly loved her, she reiterated, he would never have 
made it an issue between them. But that was like a man 
— to insist on his own desires being made paramount ; 
to blunder on headlong, no matter what antagonisms 
he aroused. And he was completely in the wrong, she 
reasserted. 

She recapitulated it all. Through the winter he had 
consistently withdrawn into his shell. For her friends 
and for most of her pleasures he had at best exhibited 
only tolerance. And he had ended by outraging both 
them and her, and on top of that demanded that she 
turn her back at twenty-four hours^ notice, on Gran- 
ville and all its associations and follow him into a wil- 
derness that she dreaded. She had full right to her re- 
sentment. As his partner in the chancy enterprise of 
marriage were not her feelings and desires entitled to 
equal consideration.? He had assumed the role of dic- 
tator. And she had revolted. That was all. She was 
justified. 


310 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Eventually she slept. At ten o’clock, heavy-eyed, 
suffering an intolerable headache, she rose and dressed. 

Beside her plate lay a thick letter addressed in Bill’s 
handwriting. She drank her coffee and went back to 
the bedroom before she opened the envelope. By the 
postmark she saw that it had been mailed on a train. 

Dear Girl: I have caught my breath, so to speak, 
but I doubt if ever a more forlorn cuss listened to the | 
interminable clicking of car wheels. I am tempted at 
each station to turn back and try again. It seems so 
unreal, this parting in hot anger, so miserably unneces- 
sary. But when I stop to sum it up again, I see no use 
in another appeal. I could come back — yes. Only 
the certain knowledge that giving in like that would 
send us spinning once more in a vicious circle prevents 
me. I didn’t believe it possible that we could get so 
far apart. Nor that a succession of little things could 
cut so weighty a figure in our lives. And perhaps you 
are very sore and resentful at me this morning for be- 
ing so precipitate. 

I couldn’t help it, Hazel. It seemed the only way. 

It seems so yet to me. There was nothing more to keep 
me in Granville — ever3rthing to make me hurry away. 

If I had weakened and temporized with you it would only 
mean the deferring of just what has happened. When 
you declared yourself flatly and repeatedly it seemed 
hopeless to argue further. I am a poor pleader, per- 
haps ; and I do not believe in compulsion between us. 
Whatever you do you must do of your own volition, 
without pressure from me. We couldn’t be happy . 


A LETTER FROM BILL 


311 

otherwise. If I compelled you to follow me against 
your desire we should only drag misery in our train. 

I couldn’t even say good-by. I didn’t want it to be 
good-by. I didn’t know if I could stick to my deter- 
mination to go unless I went as I did. And my reason 
told me that if there must be a break it would better 
come now than after long-drawn-out bickerings and bit- 
terness. If we are so diametrically opposed where we 
thought we stood together we have made a mistake that 
no amount of adjusting, nothing but separate roads, 
will rectify. Myself I refuse to believe that we have 
made such a mistake. I don’t think that honestly and 
deliberately you prefer an exotic, useless, purposeless, 
parasitic existence to the normal, wholesome life we hap- 
pily planned. But you are obsessed, intoxicated — I 
can’t put it any better — and nothing but a shock will 
sober you. If I’m wrong, if love and Bill’s companion- 
ship can’t lure you away from these other things — 
why, I suppose you will consider it an ended chapter. 
In that case you will not suffer. The situation as it 
stands will be a relief to you. If, on the other hand, 
it’s merely a stubborn streak, that won’t let you admit 
that you’ve carried your proud little head on an over- 
stiff neck, do you think it’s worth the price.? I don’t. 

I’m not scolding, little person. I’m sick and sore at 
the pass we’ve come to. No damn-fool pride can close 
my eyes to the fact or keep me from admitting freely that 
I love you just as much and want you as longingly as 
I did the day I put you aboard the Stanley Z). at Bella 
Coola. I thought you were stepping gladly out of my 
life then. And I let you go freely and without any- 


312 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


thing but a dumb protest against fate, because it was 
your wish. I can step out of your life again — if it 
is your wish. But I can’t imprison myself in your 
cities. I can’t pretend, even for your sake, to play the 
game they call business. I’m neither an idler nor can 
I become a legalized buccaneer. I have nothing but 
contempt for those who are. Mind you, this is not so 
sweeping a statement as it sounds. No one has a 
keener appreciation of what civilization means than I. 
Out of it has arisen culture and knowledge, much of 
what should make the world a better place for us all. 
But somehow this doesn’t apply to the mass, and par- 
ticularly not to the circles we invaded in Granville. 
With here and there a solitary exception that class is 
hopeless in its smug self-satisfaction — its narrowness 
of outlook, and unblushing exploitation of the less for- 
tunate, repels me. 

And to dabble my hands in their muck, to settle down 
and live my life according to their bourgeois standards, 
to have grossness of soft flesh replace able sinews, to 
submerge mentality in favor of a specious craftiness of 
mind which passes in the “ city ” for brains — well, I’m 
on the road. And, oh, girl, girl, I wish you were with 
me. 

I must explain this mining deal — that phase of it 
which sent me on the rampage in Granville. I should 
have done so before, should have insisted on making it 
clear to you. But a fellow doesn’t always do the proper 
thing at the proper time. All too frequently we are 
dominated by our emotions rather than by our judgment. 
It was so with me. The other side had been presented 


A LETTER FROM BILL 


313 


to you rather cleverly at the right time. And your 
ready acceptance of it angered me beyond bounds. 
You were prejudiced. It stirred me to a perfect fury 
to think you couldn’t be absolutely loyal to your pal. 
When you took that position I simply couldn’t attempt 
explanations. Do you think I’d ever have taken the 
other fellow’s side against you, right or wrong? 

Anyway, here it is: You got the essentials, up to 
a certain point, from Brooks. But he didn’t tell it all 
— his kind never does, not by a long shot. They, the 
four of them, it seems, held a meeting as soon as I 
shipped out that gold and put through that stock-sell- 
ing scheme. That was legitimate. I couldn’t restrain 
them from that, being a hopeless minority of one. 
Their chief object, however, was to let two or three 
friends in on the ground floor of a good thing; also', 
they wanted each a good bundle of that stock while it 
was cheap — figuring that with the prospects I had 
opened up it would sell high. So they had it on the 
market, and in addition had everything framed up to re- 
organize with a capitalization of two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. This all cut and dried before I got 
there. Now, as it originally stood, the five of us would 
each have made a small fortune on these Klappan claims. 
They’re good. But with a quarter of a million in out- 
standing stock — well, it would be all right for the 
fellow with a big block. But you can see where I would 
get off with a five-thousand-dollar interest. To be sure, 
a certain proportion of the money derived from the sale 
of this stock should be mine. But it goes into the treas- 
ury, and they had it arranged to keep it in the treas- 


314 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


ury, as a fund for operations, with them doing the 
operating. They had already indicated their bent by 
voting an annual stipend of ten thousand and six thou- 
sand dollars to Lorimer and Brooks as president and 
secretary respectively. Me, they proposed to quiet 
with a manager’s wage of a mere five thousand a year 
— after I got on the ground and began to get my back 
up. 

Free Gold would have been a splendid Stock Ex- 
change possibility. They had it all doped out how 
they could make sundry clean-ups Irrespective of the 
mine’s actual product. That was the first thing that 
made me dubious. They were stock-market gamblers, 
manipulators pure and simple. But I might have let 
it go at that, seeing it was their game and not one that 
I or anybody I cared about would get fleeced at. I 
didn’t approve of it, you understand. It was their 
game. 

But they capped the climax with what I must cold- 
bloodedly characterize as the baldest attempt at a 
dirty fraud I ever encountered. And they had the gall 
to try and make me a party to it. To make this clear 
you must understand that I, on behalf of the company 
and acting as the company’s agent, grubstaked Whitey 
Lewis and four others to go in and stake those claims. 
I was empowered to arrange with these five men that 
if the claims made a decent showing each should re- 
ceive five thousand dollars in stock for assigning their 
claims to the company, and should have employment at 
top wages while the claims were operated. 

They surely earned it. You know what the North 


A LETTER FROM BILL 


315 


is in the dead of winter. They bucked their way 
through a hell of frost and snow and staked the claims. 
If ever men were entitled to what was due them, they 
were. And not one of them stuttered over his bargain, 
even though they were taking out weekly as much 
gold as they were to get for their full share. They’d 
given their word, and they were white men. They 
took me for a white man also. They took my 
word that they would get what was coming to them, 
and gave me in the company’s name clear title to every 
claim. I put those titles on record in Hazleton, and 
came home. 

Lorimer and Brooks deliberately proposed to with- 
hold that stock, to defraud these men, to steal — oh, I 
can’t find words strong enough. They wanted to let 
the matter stand; wanted me to let it be adjusted later; 
anything to serve as an excuse for delay. Brooks 
said to me, with a grin : “ The property’s in the com- 

pany’s name — let the roughnecks sweat a while. 
They’ve got no come-back, anyhow.” 

That was when I smashed him. Do you blame me.?^ 
I’d taken over those fellows’ claims in good faith. 
Could I go back there and face those men and say: 
‘‘ Boys, the company’s got your claims, and they won’t 
pay for them.” Do you think for a minute I’d let a 
bunch of lily-fingered crooks put anything like that 
over on simple, square-dealing fellows who were too 
honest to protect their own interests from sharp prac- 
tice.? A quartet of soft-bodied mongrels who sat in 
upholstered office chairs while these others wallowed 
through six feet of snow for three weeks, living on 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


316 

bacon and beans, to grab a pot of gold for them! It 
makes my fist double up when I think about it. 

And I wouldn’t be put off or placated by a chance 
to fatten r^y own bank roll. I didn’t care if I broke 
the Free Gold Mining Company and myself likewise. 
A dollar doesn’t terrify nor yet fascinate me — I hope 
it never will. And while, perhaps, it was not what they 
would call good form for me to lose my temper and go 
at them with my fists, I was fighting mad when I thor- 
oughly sensed their dirty project. Anyway, it helped 
bring them to time. When you take a man of that 
type and cuff him around with your two hands he’s apt 
to listen serious to what you say. And they listened 
when I told them in dead earnest next day that Whitey 
Lewis and his partners must have what was due them, 
or I’d wreck the bunch of them if it took ten years and 
every dollar I had to do it. And I could have put them 
on the tramp, too — they’d already dipped their fingers 
in where they couldn’t stand litigation. I’m sure of 
that — or they would never have come through ; which 
they did. 

But I’m sorry I ever got mixed up with them. I’m 
going to sell my stock and advise Lewis and the others 
to do the same while we can get full value for it. Lori- 
mer and that bunch will manipulate the outfit to death, 
no matter how the mine produces. They’ll have a quar- 
ter of a million to work on pretty soon, and they’ll 
work it hard. They’re shysters — but it’s after all 
only a practical demonstration of the ethics of the type 
— “ Do everybody you can — if you can do ’em so 
there’s no come-back.” 


A LETTER FROM BILL 


317 


j That’s all of that. I don’t care two whoops about 
\ the money. There is still gold in the Klappan Range 
I and other corners of the North, whenever I need it. 
I But it nauseated me. I can’t stand that cutthroat 
! game. And Granville, like most other cities of its kind, 
^ lives by and for that sort of thing. The pressure of 
modern life makes it inevitable. Anyway, a town is no 
j place for me. I can stomach it about so long, and no 
\ longer. It’s too cramped, too girded about with petty- 
f larceny conventions. If once you slip and get down, 
J every one walks on you. Everything’s restricted, 
priced, tinkered with. There is no real freedom of 
■ body or spirit. I wouldn’t trade a comfy log cabin in 
the woods with a big fireplace and a shelf of books for 
the finest home on Maple Drive — not if I had to stay 
there and stifle in the dust and smoke and smells. That 
would be a sordid and impoverished existence. I can- 
not live by the dog-eat-dog code that seems to prevail 
wherever folk get jammed together in an unwieldy so- 
cial mass. 

I have said the like to you before. By nature and 
training I’m unfitted to live in these crowded places. I 
love you, little person, I don’t think you realize how 
much, but I can’t make you happy by making myself 
utterly miserable. That would only produce the in- 
evitable reaction. But I still think you are essentially 
enough like me to meet me on common ground. You 
loved me and you found contentment and joy at our 
little cabin once. Don’t you think it might be waiting 
there again? 

If you really care, if I and the old North still mean 


3i8 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


anything to you, a few days or weeks, or even months 
of separation won’t matter. An affection that can’t 
survive six months is too fragile to go through life on. 
I don’t ask you to jump the next train and follow me. 
I don’t ask you to wire me, “ Come back. Bill.” Though 
I would come quick enough if you called me. I 
merely want you to think it over soberly and let your 
heart decide. You know where I stand, don’t you. 
Hazel, dear I haven’t changed — not a bit — I’m 
the same old Bill. But I’d rather hit the trail alone 
than with an unwilling partner. Don’t flounder about 
in any quicksand of duty. There is no ‘‘ I ought to ” 
between us. 

So it is up to you once more, little person. If my 
way is not to be your way I will abide by your de- 
cision without whining. And whenever you want to 
reach me, a message to Felix Courvoiseur, Fort George, 
will eventually find me. I’ll fix it that way. 

I don’t know what I’ll do after I make that Klappan 
trip. I’m too restless to make plans. What’s the use 
of planning when there’s nobody but myself to plan 
for.? 

So long, little person. I like you a heap, for all 
your cantankerous ways. Bill. 

She laid aside the letter, with a lump in her throat. 
For a brief instant she was minded to telegraph the 
word that would bring him hurrying back. But — 
some of the truths he had set down in cold black and 
white cut her deep. Of a surety she had drawn her 
weapon on the wrong side in the mining trouble. Over- 


A LETTER FROM BILL 


319 

hasty? — yes. And shamefully disloyal. Perhaps 
there was something in it. after all; that is to say, it 
might be they had made a mistake. She saw plainly 
enough that unless she could get back some of the old 
enthusiasm for that wilderness life, unless the fascina- 
tion of magnificent distances, of silent, breathless for- 
ests, of contented, quiet days on trail and stream, could 
lay fast hold of her again, they would only defer the 
day of reckoning, as Bill had said. 

And she was not prepared to go that far. She still 
harbored a smoldering grudge against him for his vol- 
canic outburst in Granville, and too precipitate depar- 
ture. He had given her no time to think, to make a 
choice. The flesh-pots still seemed wholly desirable — 
or, rather, she shrank from the alternative. When she 
visualized the North it uprose always in its most threat- 
ening presentment, indescribably lonely, the playground 
of ruthless, elemental forces, terrifying in its vast 
emptinesses. It appalled her in retrospect, loomed un- 
utterably desolate in contrast to her present surround- 
ings. 

No, she would not attempt to call him back. She 
doubted if he would come. And she would not go — 
not yet. She must have time to think. 

One thing pricked her sorely. She could not rec- 
oncile the roguery of Brooks and Lorimer with the men 
as she knew them. Not that she doubted Bill’s word. 
But there must be a mistake somewhere. Ruthless com- 
petition in business she knew and understood. Only the 
fit survived — just as in her husband’s chosen field only 
the peculiarly fit could hope to survive. But she rather 


320 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


resented the idea that pleasiant, well-bred people could 
be guilty of coarse, forthright fraud. Surely not ! 

Altogether, as the first impression of Bill’s letter 
grew less vivid to her she considered her grievances 
more. And she was minded to act as she had set out 
to do — to live her life as seemed best to her, rather 
than pocket her pride and rejoin Bill. The feminine 
instinct to compel the man to capitulate asserted itself 
more and more strongly. 

Wherefore, she dressed carefully and prepared to 
meet a luncheon engagement which she recalled as be- 
ing down for that day. No matter that her head ached 
woefully. Thought maddened her. She required dis- 
traction, craved change. The chatter over the tea- 
cups, the cheerful nonsense of that pleasure-seeking 
crowd might be a tonic. Anything was better than to 
sit at home and brood. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


THE SPUR 


A month ‘passed. 

During that thirty-day period she received a brief 
note from Bill. Just a few lines to say; 

Hit the ranch yesterday, little person. Looks good 
to me. Have had Lauer do some work on it this sum- 
mer. Went fishing last night about sundown. Trout 
were rising fine. Nailed a two-pounder. He jumped 

I a foot clear of the water after my fly, and gave me a 
hot time for about ten minutes. Woke up this morn- 
ing at daylight and found a buck deer with two lady 
friends standing in the middle of the clearing. I loafed 

II a fews days in Fort George, sort of thinking I might 
\ hear from you. Am sending this out by Jake. Will 

start for the Klappan about day after to-morrow. 

I 

She had not answered his first letter. She had tried 
to. But somehow when she tried to set pen to paper 
the right words would not come. She lacked his fa- 
j cility of expression. There was so much she wanted to 
[ say, so littl-e she seemed able to say. As the days 
! passed she felt less sure of her ground, less sure that 
she had not sacrificed something precious to a vagary 
of self, an obsession of her own ego. 


322 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Many things took on a different complexion now that 
she stood alone. No concrete evidence of change stood 
forth preeminent. It was largely subjective, atmos- 
pheric, intangible impressions. 

Always with a heart sinking she came back to the 
empty apartment, knowing that it would be empty. 
During Bill’s transient absence of the spring she had 
missed him scarcely at all. She could not say that 
now. 

And slowly but surely she began to view all her ac- 
tivities of her circle with a critical eye. She was 
brought to this partly in self-defense. Certain of her 
friends had become tentative enemies. Kitty Brooks 
and the Bray womenfolk, who were a numerous and in- 
fluential tribe, not only turned silent faces when they 
met, but they made war on her in the peculiar fashion 
of women. A word here, a suggestive phrase there, a 
shrug of the shoulders. It all bore fruit. Other 
friends conveyed the avid gossip. Hazel smiled and ig- 
nored it. But in her own rooms she raged unavail- 
ingly. 

Her husband had left her. There was a man in the 
case. They had lost everything. The first count was 
suflSciently maddening because it was a half truth. 
And any of it was irritating — even if few believed — 
since it made a choice morsel to digest in gossipy cor- 
ners, and brought sundry curious stares on Hazel at 
certain times. Also Mr. Wagstaff had caused the 
stockholders of Free Gold a heavy loss — which was 
only offset by the fact that the Free Gold properties 
were producing richly. None of this was even openly 


THE SPUR 


323 


flung at her. She gathered it piecemeal. And it galled 
her. She could not openly defend either Bill or her- 
self against the shadowy scandalmongers. 

Slowly it dawned upon her, with a bitterness born 
of her former experience with Granville, that she had 
lost something of the standing that certain circles had 
accorded her as the wife of a successful mining man. 
i It made her ponder. Was Bill so far wrong, after all, 
in his estimate of them? It was a disheartening con- 
clusion. She had come of a family that stood well in 
Granville; she had grown up there; if life-time friends 
blew hot and cold like that, was the game worth play- 
ing? 

In so far as she could she gave the lie to some of the 
petty gossip. Whereas at first she had looked du- 
I biously on spending Bill’s money to maintain the stand- 
ard of living they had set up, she now welcomed that de- 
posit of five thousand dollars as a means to demon- 
I strate that even in his absence he stood behind her 
I financially — which she began to perceive counted more 
i than anything else. So long as she could dress in the 
j best, while she could ride where others walked, so long 
I as she betrayed no limitation of resources, the doors 

I stood wide. Not what you are, but what you’ve got — 
she remembered Bill saying that was their holiest creed. 

It repelled her. And sometimes she was tempted to 
sit down and pour it all out in a letter to him. But 
she could not quite bring herself to the point. Always 
behind Bill loomed the vast and dreary Northland, and 
she shrank from that. 

On top of this, she began to suffer a queer upset 


324 


NORTH OP FIFTY-THREE 


of her physical condition. All her life she had been 
splendidly healthy; her body a perfect-working ma- 
chine, afflicted with no weaknesses. Now odd spas- 
modic pains recurred without rhyme or reason in her 
head, her back, her limbs, striking her with sudden 
poignancy, disappearing as suddenly. 

She was stretched on the lounge one afternoon wres- 
tling nervously with a particularly acute attack, when 
Vesta Lorimer was ushered in. 

“ You’re almost a stranger,” Hazel remarked, after 
the first greetings. ‘‘ Your outing must have been pleas- 
ant, to hold you so long.” 

“ It would have held me longer,” Vesta returned, “ if 
I didn’t have to be in touch with my market. I could 
live quite happily on my island eight months in the year. 
But one can’t get people to come several hundred miles 
to a sitting. And I feel inclined to acquire a living 
income while my vogue lasts.” 

“You’re rather a wilderness lover, aren’t you?” 
Hazel commented. “ I don’t think you’d love it as 
dearly if you were buried alive in it.” 

“ That would all depend on the circumstances,” 
Vesta replied. “ One escapes many disheartening 
things in a country that is still comparatively prim- 
itive. The continual grind of keeping one’s end up 
in town gets terribly wearisome. I’m always glad to 
go to the woods, and sorry when I have to leave. But 
I suppose it’s largely in one’s point of view.” 

They chatted of sundry matters for a few minutes. 

“ By the way, is there any truth in the statement 
that this Free Gold row has created trouble between 


THE SPUR 


325 


you and your husband?” Vesta asked abruptly. ‘‘I 
dare say it’s quite an impertinent question, and you’d 
be well within your rights to tell me it’s none of my busi- 
ness. But I should like to confound some of these petty 
tattlers. I haven’t been home forty-eight hours ; yet 
I’ve heard tongues wagging. I hope there’s nothing in 
it. I warned Mr. Wagstaff against Paul.” 

“Warned him? Why? ” Hazel neglected the ques- 
tion entirely. The bluntness of it took her by sur- 
prise. Frank speech was not a characteristic of Vesta 
Lorimer’s set. 

The girl shrugged her shoulders. 

“ He is my brother, but that doesn’t veil my eyes,” 
she said coolly. “ Paul is too crooked to lie straight 
in bed. I’m glad Mr. WagstafF brought the lot of them 
up with a round turn — which he seems to have done. 
If he had used a club instead of his fists it would have 
been only their deserts. I suppose the fuss quite upset 
you ? ” 

“ It did,” Hazel admitted grudgingly. “ It did more 
than upset me.” 

“ I thought as much,” Vesta said slowly. “ It made 
you inflict an undeserved hurt on a man who should 
have had better treatment at your hands; not only be- 
cause he loves you, but because he is one of the few men 
who deserve the best that you or any woman can give.” 

Hazel straightened up angrily. 

“ Where do you get your astonishing information, 
pray ? ” she asked hotly. “ And where do you get your 
authority to say such things to me ? ” 

Vesta tucked back a vagrant strand of her tawny 


326 NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 

hair. Her blue eyes snapped, and a red spot glowed 
on each smooth, fair cheek. 

“ I don’t get it ; I’m taking it,” she flung back. “ I 
have eyes and ears, and I have used them for months. 
Since you inquire, I happened to be going over the Lake 
Division on the same train that carried your husband 
back to the North. You can’t knife a man without 
him bearing the marks of it ; and I learned in part why 
he was going back alone. The rest I guessed, by put- 
ting two and two together. You’re a silly, selfish, 
shortsighted little fool, if my opinion is worth having.” 

“ You’ve said quite enough,” Hazel cried. If you 
have any more insults, please get rid of them elsewhere. 
I think you are — ” 

“ Oh, I don’t care what you think of me,” the girl 
interrupted recklessly. ‘‘ If I did I wouldn’t be here. 
I’d hide behind the conventional rules of the game and 
let you blunder along. But I can’t. I’m not gifted 
with your blind egotism. Whatever you are, that Bill 
of yours loves you, and if you care anything for him, 
you should be with him. I would, if I were lucky enough 
to stand in your shoes. I’d go with him down into hell 
itself gladly if he wanted me to ! ” 

“ Oh! ” Hazel gasped. ‘‘ Are you clean mad.^ ” 

“ Shocked to death, aren’t you? ” Vesta fleered. 
‘‘You can’t understand, can you? I love him — yes. 
I’m not ashamed to own it. I’m no sentimental prude 
to throw up my hands in horror at a perfectly natural 
emotion. But he is not for me. I dare say I couldn’t 
give him an added heartbeat if I tried. And I have a 
little too much pride — strange as it may seem to you 


THE SPUR 


327 


— to try, so long as he is chained hand and foot to your 
chariot. But you’re making him suffer. And I care 
enough to want him to live all his days happily. He is 
a man, and there are so few of them, real men. If you 
can make him happy I’d compel you to do so, if I had 
the power. You couldn’t understand that kind of a 
love. Oh, I could choke you for your stupid disloy- 
alty. I could do almost anything that would spur you 
to action. I can’t rid myself of the hopeless, reckless 
mood he was in. There are so few of his kind, the pa- 
tient, strong, loyal, square-dealing men, with a woman’s 
tenderness and a lion’s courage. Any woman should 
be proud and glad to be his mate, to mother his chil- 
dren. And you — ” 

She threw out her hands with a sudden, despairing 
gesture. The blue eyes grew misty, and she hid her 
face in her palms. Before that passionate outburst 
Hazel sat dumbly amazed, staring, uncertain. In a sec- 
ond Vesta lifted her head defiantly. 

“ I had no notion of breaking out like this when I 
came up,” she said quietly. “ I was going to be very 
adroit. I intended to give you a friendly boost along 
the right road, if I could. But it has all been bub- 
bling inside me for a long time. You perhaps think it 
very unwomanly — but I don’t care much what you 
think. My little heartache is incidental, one of the 
things life deals us whether we will or not. But if you 
care in the least for your husband, for God’s sake 
make some effort, some sacrifice of your own petty little 
desires, to make his road a little pleasanter, a little 
less gray than it must be now. You’ll be well repaid 


328 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


— if you are the kind that must always be paid in full. 
Don’t be a stiff-necked idiot. That’s all I wanted to 
say. Good-by ! ” 

She was at the door when she finished. The click 
of the closing catch stirred Hazel to speech and ac- 
tion. 

“Vesta, Vesta!” she cried, and ran out into the 
corridor. 

But Vesta Lorimer neither heeded nor halted. And 
Hazel went back to her room, quivering. Sometimes 
the truth is bitter and stirs to wrath. And mingled 
with other emotions was a dull pang of jealousy — the 
first she had ever known. For Vesta Lorimer was beau- 
tiful beyond most women ; and she had but given ample 
evidence of the bigness of her soul. AVith shamed tears 
creeping to her eyes. Hazel wondered if she could love 
even Bill so intensely that she would drive another 
woman to his arms that he might win happiness. 

But one thing stood out clear above that painful meet- 
ing. She was done fighting against the blankness that 
seemed to surround her since Bill went away. Slowly 
but steadily it had been forced upon her that much 
which she deemed desirable, even necessary, was of little 
weight in the balance with him. Day and night she 
longed for him, for his cheery voice, the whimsical good 
humor of him, his kiss and his smile. Indubitably Vesta 
Lorimer was right to term her a stiff-necked, selfish 
fool. But if all folk were saturated with the essence 
of wisdom — well, there was but one thing to be done. 
Silly pride had to go by the board. If to face gayly 
a land she dreaded were the price of easing his heart- 


THE SPUR 


329 


ache — and her own — that price she would pay, and 
pay with a grace but lately learned. 

She lay down on the lounge again. The old pains 
were back. And as she endured, a sudden startling 
thought flashed across her mind. A possibility.'^ — yes. 
She hurried to dress, wondering why it had not before 
occurred to her, and, phoning up a taxi, rolled down- 
town to the office of Doctor Hart. An hour or so later 
she returned. A picture of her man stood on the man- 
tel. She took it down and stared at it with a tremu- 
lous smile. 

“ Oh, Billy-boy, Billy-boy, I wish you knew,” she 
whispered. “ But I was coming, anyway. Bill ! ” 

That evening, stirring about her preparations for 
the journey, she paused, and wondered why, for the 
first time since Bill left, she felt so utterly at peace. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


HOME AGAIN 

Twelve months works many a change on a changing 
frontier. Hazel found this so. When she came to 
plan her route she found the G. T. P. bridging the last 
gap in a transcontinental system, its trains westbound 
already within striking distance of Fort George. She 
could board a sleeping car at Granville and detrain 
within a hundred miles of the ancient trading post — 
with a fast river boat to carry her the remaining dis- 
tance. 

Fort George loomed up a jumbled area of houses and 
tents, log buildings, frame structures yellow in their 
newness, strangers to paint as yet. On every hand 
others stood in varying stages of erection. Folks hur- 
ried about the sturdy beginning of a future greatness. 
And as she left the boat and followed a new-laid walk 
of planks toward a hotel, Jake Lauer stepped out of a 
store, squarely into her path. 

His round face lit up with a smile of recognition. 
And Hazel, fresh from the long and lonesome journey, 
was equally glad to set eyes on a familiar, a genuinely 
friendly face. 

“ I am pleased to welgome you back to Gott’s coun- 
try, Mrs. Vagstaff,” he said. “ Und let me carry dot 
suid case alretty.” 


HOME AGAIN 


331 


They walked two blocks to the King’s Hotel, where 
Lauer’s family was housed. He was in for supplies, 
he told her, and, of course, his wife and children ac- 
companied him. 

“ Not dat Gredda iss afraid. She iss so goot a man 
as I on der ranch ven I am gone,” he explained. “ But 
for dem it iss a change. Und I bring by der town a 
vaigonloat off bodadoes. By cosh, dem bodadoes iss 
sell high.” 

It flashed into Hazel’s mind that here was a Heaven- 
sent opportunity to reach the cabin without facing that 
hundred miles in the company of chance-hired strangers. 
But she did not broach the subject at once. Instead, 
she asked eagerly of Bill. Lauer told her that Bill 
had tarried a few days at the cabin, and then struck 
out alone for the mines. And he had not said when he 
would be back. 

Mrs. Lauer, unchanged from a year earlier, welcomed 
her with pleased friendliness. And Jake left the two 
of them and the chubby kiddies in the King’s ofiice while 
he betook himself about his business. Hazel haled his 
wife and the children to her room as soon as one was 
assigned to her. And there, almost before she knew 
it, she was murmuring brokenly her story into an ear 
that listened with sympathy and understanding. Only 
a woman can grasp some of a woman’s needs. Gretta 
Lauer patted Hazel’s shoulder with a motherly hand, 
and bade her cheer up. 

“ Home’s the place for you, dear,” she said smilingly. 
“ You just come right along with us. Your man will 
come quick enough when he gets word. And we’ll take 


332 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


good care of you in the meantime. La, I’m all excited 
over it. It’s the finest thing could happen for you both. 
Take it from me, dearie. I know. We’ve had our 
troubles, Jake and I. And, seeing I’m only six months 
short of being a graduate nurse, you needn’t fear. 
Well, well!” 

“ I’ll need to have food hauled in,” Hazel reflected. 
“ And some things I brought with me. I wish Bill 
were here. I’m afraid I’ll be a lot of bother. Won’t 
you be heavily loaded, as it is ? ” 

She recalled swiftly the odd, makeshift team that 
Lauer depended on — the mule, lop-eared and solemn? 
“ und Gretchen, der cow.” She had cash and drafts 
for over three thousand dollars on her person. She 
wondered if it would offend the sturdy independence of 
these simple, kindly neighbors, if she offered to supply 
a four-horse team and wagon for their mutual use.?^ 
But she had been forestalled there, she learned in the 
next breath. 

“ Oh, bother nothing,” Mrs. Lauer declared. Why, 
we’d be ashamed if we couldn’t help a little. And far’s 
the load goes, you ought to see the four beautiful horses 
your husband let Jake have. You don’t know how much 
Jake appreciates it, nor what a fine man he thinks your 
husband is. We needed horses so bad, and didn’t have 
the money to buy. So Mr. Wagstaff didn’t say a 
thing but got the team for us, and Jake’s paying for 
them in clearing and plowing and making improvements 
on your land. Honesty they could pull twice the load 
we^ll have. There’s a good wagon road most of the 
way now. Quite a lot of settlers, too, as much as fifty 


HOME AGAIN 


333 


or sixty miles out. And we’ve got the finest garden 
you ever saw. Vegetables enough to feed four families 
all winter. Oh, your old cities ! I never want to live 
in one again. Never a day have the kiddies been sick. 
Suppose it is a bit out of the world? You’re all the 
more pleased when somebody does happen along. 
Folks is so different in a new country like this. There’s 
plenty for everybody — and everybody helps, like 
neighbors ought to.” 

Lauer came up after a time, and Hazel found her- 
self unequivocally in their hands. With the matter of 
transporting herself and supplies thus solved, she set 
out to find Felix Courvoiseur — who would know how 
to get word to Bill. He might come back to the cabin 
in a month or so ; he might not come back at all unless 
he heard from her. She was smitten with a great fear 
that he might give her up as lost to him, and plunge 
deeper into the wilderness in some mood of recklessness. 
And she wanted him, longed for him, if only so that 
she could make amends. 

She easily found Courvoiseur, a tall, spare French- 
man, past middle age. Yes, he could deliver a message 
to Bill Wagstaff; that is, he could send a mam Bill 
Wagstaff was in the Klappan Range. 

“But if he should have left there?” Hazel sug- 
gested uneasily. 

“ ’E weel leave weeth W’itey Lewees word of w’ere 
’e go,” Courvoiseur reassured her. “ An’ my man, 
w’ich ees my bruzzer-law, w’ich I can mos’ fully trus’, 
’e weel follow ’eem. So Beel ’e ees arrange. ’E ees say 
mos’ parteecular if madame ees come or weesh for for- 


334 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


ward message, geet heem to me queeck. Oui. Long 
tarn Beel ees know me. I am for depend always.” 

Courvoiseur kept a trader’s stock of goods in a 
weather-beaten old log house which sprawled a hun- 
dred feet back from the street. Thirty years, he told 
her, he had kept that store in Fort George. She 
guessed that Bill had selected him because he was a fix- 
ture. She sat down at his counter and wrote her mes- 
sage. Just a few terse lines. And when she had de- 
livered it to Courvoiseur she went back to the hotel. 
There was nothing now to do but wait. And with the 
message under way she found herself impatient to reach 
the cabin, to spend the waiting days where she had first 
found happiness. She could set her house in order 
against her man’s coming. And if the days dragged, 
and the great, lone land seemed to close in and press in- 
exorably upon her, she would have to be patient, very 
patient. 

Jake was held up, waiting for supplies. Fort George 
suffered a sugar famine. Two days later, the belated 
freight arrived. He loaded his wagon, a ton of goods 
for himself, a like weight of Hazel’s supplies and be- 
longings. A goodly load, but he drove out of Fort 
George with four strapping bays arching their power- 
ful necks, and champing on the bit. 

“ Four days ve vill make it by der ranch,” Jake 
chuckled. “ Mit der mule und Gretchen, der cow, von 
veek it take me, mit half der loat.” 

Four altogether pleasant and satisfying days they 
were to Hazel. The worst of the fly pests were van- 
ished for the season. A crisp touch of frost sharpened 


HOME AGAIN 


335 


the night winds. Indian summer hung its mellow haze 
over the land. The clean, pungent air that sifted 
through the forests seemed doubly sweet after the vi- 
tiated atmosphere of town. Fresh from a gridiron of 
dusty streets and stone pavements, and but stepped, as 
one might say, from days of imprisonment in the nar- 
row coniines of a railway coach, she drank the winey 
air in hungry gulps, and joyed in the soft yielding of 
the turf beneath her feet, the fern and pea-vine carpet 
of the forest floor. 

It was her pleasure at night to sleep as she and Bill 
had slept, with her face bared to the stars. She would 
draw her bed a little aside from the camp fire and from 
the low seclusion of a thicket lie watching the nimble 
flames at their merry dance, smiling lazily at the gro- 
tesque shadows cast by J ake and his frau as they moved 
about the blaze. And she would wake in the morning 
clear-headed, alert, grateful for the pleasant woodland 
smells arising wholesomely from the fecund bosom of 
the earth. 

Lauer pulled up before his own cabin at mid-after- 
noon of the fourth day, unloaded his own stuff, and 
drove to his neighbor’s with the rest. 

“ I’ll walk back after a little,” Hazel told him, when 
he had piled her goods in one comer of the kitchen. 

The rattle of the wagon died away. She was alone 
— 'at home. Her eyes filled as she roved restlessly 
from kitchen to living-room and on into the bedroom at 
the end. Bill had unpacked. The rugs were down, the 
books stowed in familiar disarray upon their shelves, 
the bedding spread in semi-disorder where he had last 


336 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


slept and gone away without troubling to smooth it 
out in housewifely fashion. 

She came back to the living-room and seated herself 
in the big chair. She had expected to be lonely, very 
lonely. But she was not. Perhaps that would come 
later. For the present it seemed as if she had reached 
the end of something, as if she were very tired, and had 
gratefully come to a welcome resting place. She 
turned her gaze out the open door where the forest fell 
away in vast undulations to a range of snow-capped 
mountains purple in the autumn haze, and a verse that 
Bill had once quoted came back to her: 

“ Oh, to feel the Wind grow strong 
Where the Trail leaps down. 

I could never learn the way 
And wisdom of the Town.” 

She blinked. The town — it seemed to have grown 
remote, a fantasy in which she had played a puppet 
part. But she was home again. If only the gladness 
of it endured strong enough to carry her through what- 
ever black days might come to her there alone. 

She would gladly have cooked her supper in the 
kitchen fireplace, and laid down to sleep under her own 
roof. It seemed the natural thing to do. But she had 
not expected to find the cabin livably arranged, and she 
had promised the Lauers to spend the night with them. 
So presently she closed the door and walked away 
through the woods. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


after many days 

Septetnfeer arid October trooped past, and as they 
marched the thickets and poplar groves grew yel- 

low and bro>vn, and carpeted the floor of the woods with 
fallen leaves. Shrub and tree bared gaunt limbs to 
every autumn wind. Only the spruce and pine stood 
forth in their year-round habiliments of green. The 
days shortened steadily. The nights grew long, and bit- 
ter with frost. Snow fell, blanketing softly the dead 
leaves. Old Winter cracked his whip masterfully over 
all the North. 

Day by day, between tasks, and often while she 
worked. Hazel’s eyes would linger on the edges of the 
clearing. Often at night she would lift herself on elbow 
at some unexpected sound, her heart leaping wild with 
expectation. And always she would lie down again, and 
sometimes press her clenched hand to her lips to keep 
back the despairing cry. Always she adjured herself 
to be patient, to wait doggedly as Bill would have waited, 
to make due allowance for immensity of distance for 
the manifold delays which might overtake a messen- 
ger faring across those silent miles or a man hurrying 
to his home. Many things might hold him back. But 
he would come. It was inconceivable that he might not 


come. 


338 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


Meantime, with only a dim consciousness of the fact, 
she underwent a marvelous schooling in adaptation, 
s^lf-restraint. She had work of a sort, tasks such as 
every housewife finds self-imposed in her own home. 
She was seldom lonely. She marveled at that. It was 
unique in her experience. All her old dread of the pro- 
found silence, the pathless forests which infolded like 
a prison wall, distances which seemed impossible of 
span, had vanished. In its place had fallen over her 
an abiding sense of peace, of security. The lusty 
storm winds whistling about the cabin sang a restful 
lullaby. When the wolves lifted their weird, melan- 
choly plaint to the cold, star- jeweled skies, she listened 
without the old shudder. These things, which were 
wont to oppress her, to send her imagination reeling 
along morbid Ways, seemed but a natural aspect of life, 
of which she herself was a part. 

Often, sitting before her glowing fireplace, watching 
a flame kindled with her own hands with wood she her- 
self had carried from the pile outside, she pondered this. 
It defied her powers of self-analysis. She could only 
accept it as a fact, and be glad. Granville and all that 
Granville stood for had withdrawn to a more or less re- 
mote background. She could look out over the frost- 
spangled forests and feel that she lacked nothing — 
nothing save her mate. There was no impression of 
transient abiding; no chafing to be elsewhere, to do 
otherwise. It was home, she reflected; perhaps that 
was why. 

A simple routine served to fill her days. She kept 
her house shining, she cooked her food, carried in her 


AFTER MANY DAYS 


339 


fuel. Except on days of forthright storm she put on 
her snowshoes, and with a little rifle in the crook of her 
arm prowled at random through the woods — partly 
because it gave her pleasure to range sturdily afield, 
partly for the physical brace of exertion in the crisp 
air. Otherwise she curled comfortably before the fire- 
place, and sewed, or read something out of Bill’s cath- 
olic assortment of books. 

It was given her, also, to learn the true meaning of 
neighborliness, that kindliness of spirit which is stifled 
by stress in the crowded places, and stimulated by like 
stress amid surroundings where life is noncomplex, di- 
rect, where cause and effect tread on each other’s heels. 
Every day, if she failed to drop into their cabin, came 
one of her neighbors to see if all were well with her. 
Quite as a matter of course Jake kept steadily re- 
plenished for her a great pile of firewood. Or they 
would come, babies and all, bundled in furs of Jake’s 
trapping, jingling up of an evening behind the frisky 
bays. And while the bays munched hay in Roaring 
Bill Wagstaff’s stable, they would cluster about the 
open hearth, popping corn for the children, talking, 
always with cheerful optimism. 

Behind Lauer’s mild blue eyes lurked a mind that bur- 
rowed incessantly to the roots of things. He had lived 
and worked and read, and, pondering it all, he had 
summed up a few of the verities. 

Life, it iss giffen us, und ve must off it make der 
best ve can,” he said once to Hazel, fondling a few 
books he had borrowed to read at home. “ Life iss 
goot, yust der lifBng off life, if only ve go not astray 


340 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


afder der voolish dings — und if der self-breservation 
struggle years us not out so dot ve gannot enjoy being 
alife. So many iss struggle und slave under terrible 
conditions. Und it iss largely because off ignorance. 
Ve know not vot ve can do — und ve shrink vrom der 
unknown. Here iss acres by der dousand vree to der 
man vot can off it make use — und dousands vot liffs 
und dies und neffer bass a home. Here iss goot, glean 
air — und in der shmoke und shmells und dirty streets 
iss a ravage of tuberculosis. Der balance iss not true. 
Und in der own vay der rich iss full off drouble — drunk 
mit eggcitement, veary mit Measures. Ach, der voods 
und mountains und streams, blenty off food, und a 
kindly neighbor — iss not dot enough? Only der abnor- 
mal vants more as dot. Und I dink der drouble iss 
largely dot der modern, high-bressure cifilization makes 
for der abnormal, vedder a man iss a millionaire or 
vorks in der brewery, contentment iss a state off der 
mind — und if der mind vorks mit logic it vill content 
find in der simple dings.” 

It sounded like a pronouncement of Bill’s. But 
Lauer did not often grow serious. Mostly he was jo- 
vially cheerful, and his wife likewise. The North had 
emancipated them, and they were loyal to the source 
of their deliverance. And Hazel understood, because 
she herself had found the wild land a benefactor, kindly 
in its silence, restful in its forested peace, a cure for 
sickness of soul. Twice now it had rescued her from 
herself. 

November and December went their appointed way 
— and still no word of Bill. If now and then her pil- 





Bill stood before the fireplace, his shagcy fur cap pushed 
far back on his head. Page 341. 


^‘4 




AFTER MANY DAYS 


341 


low was wet she struggled mightily against depression. 
She was not lonely in the dire significance of the word 
— but she tonged passionately for him. And she held 
fast to her faith that he would come. 

The last of the old year she went little abroad, ven- 
tured seldom beyond the clearing. And on New Year’s 
Eve Jake Lauer’s wife came to the cabin to stay. 

Hazel sat up, wide awake, on the instant. There 
was not the slightest sound. She had been deep in 
sleep. Nevertheless she felt, rather than knew, that 
some one was in the living-room. Perhaps the sound 
of the door opening had filtered through her slumber. 
She hesitated an instant, not through fear, because in 
the months of living alone fear had utterly forsaken 
her; but hope had leaped so often, only to fall sick- 
eningly, that she was half persuaded it must be a dream. 
Still the impression strengthened. She slipped out of 
bed. The door of the bedroom stood slightly ajar. 

Bill stood before the fireplace, his shaggy fur cap 
pushed far back on his head, his gauntlets swinging from 
the cord about his neck. She had left a great bed of 
coals on the hearth, and the glow shone redly on his 
frost-scabbed face. But the marks of bitter trail buck- 
ing, the marks of frostbite, the stubby beard, the tiny 
icicles that still clustered on his eyebrows; while these 
traces of hardship tugged at her heart they were for- 
gotten when she saw the expression that overshadowed 
his face. Wonder and unbelief and longing were all 
mirrored there. She took a shy step forward to see 
what riveted his gaze. And despite the choking sen- 


342 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


nation in her throat she smiled — for she had taken off 
her little, beaded house moccasins and left them lying 
on the bearskin before the fire, and he was staring down 
at them like a man fresh-wakened from a dream, unbe- 
lieving and bewildered. 

With that she opened the door and ran to him. He 
started, as if she had been a ghost. Then he opened 
his arms and drew her close to him. 

‘‘ Bill, Bill, what made you so long? ” she whispered. 
“ I guess it served me right, but it seemed a never-end- 
ing time.” 

“ What made me so long? ” he echoed, bending his 
rough cheek down against the warm smoothness of hers. 
“ Lord, I didn’t know you wanted me. I ain’t no te- 
lepathist, hon. You never yeeped one little word since 
I left. How long you been here ? ” 

‘‘ Since last September.” She smiled up at him. 
“ Didn’t Courvoiseur’s man deliver a message from me 
to the mine ? Didn’t you come in answer to my note ? ” 

“ Great Caesar’s ghost — since September — alone ! 
You poor little girl! ” he murmured. ‘‘ No, if you sent 
word to me through Courvoiseur I never got it. Maybe 
something happened his man. I left the Klappan with 
the first snow. Went poking aimlessly over around the 
Finlay River with a couple of trappers. Couldn’t set- 
tle down. Never heard a word from you. I’d given 
you up. I just blew in this way by sheer accident. 
Girl, girl, you don’t know how good it is to see you 
again, to have this warm body of yours cuddled up to 
me again. And you came right here and planted your- 
self to wait till I turned up ? ” 


AFTER MANY DAYS 


343 


“ Sure ! ” She laughed happily. ‘‘ But I sent you 
word, even if you never got it. Oh, well, it doesn’t mat- 
ter. Nothing matters now. You’re here, and I’m here, 
and — Oh, Billy-boy, I was an awful pig-headed idiot. 
Do you think you can take another chance with me ? ” 

“ Say ” — he held her off at arm’s length admiringly 
— “ do you want to know how strong I am for taking a 
chance with you.? Well, I was on my way out to flag 
the next train East, just to see — just to see if you 
still cared two pins; to see if you still thought your 
game was better than mine.” 

“ Well, you don’t have to take any eastbound train 
to find that out,” she cried gayly. I’m here to tell 
you I care a lot more than any number of pins. Oh, 
I’ve learned a lot in the last six months. Bill. I had 
to hurt myself, and you, too. I had to get a jolt to 
jar me out of my self-centered little orbit. I got it, 
and it did me good. And it’s funny. I came back 
here because I thought I ought to, because it was our 
home, but rather dreading it. And I’ve been quite con- 
tented and happy — only hungry, oh, so dreadfully 
hungry, for you.” 

Bill kissed her. 

“ I didn’t make any mistake in you, after all,” he 
said. You’re a real partner. You’re the right stuff. 
I love you more than ever. If you made a mistake you 
paid for it, like a dead-game sport. What’s a few 
months.? We’ve all our life before us, and it’s plain 
sailing now we’ve got our bearings again.” 

“ Amen ! ” she whispered. “I — but, say, man of 
mine, you’ve been on the trail, and I know what the 


344 


NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE 


trail is. You must be hungry. I’ve got all kinds of 
goodies cooked in the kitchen. Take off your clothes, 
and I’ll get you something to eat.” 

“ I’ll go you,” he said. “ I am hungry. Made a 
long mush to get here for the night. I got six huskies 
running loose outside, so if you hear ’em scuffing 
around you’ll know it’s not the wolves. Say, it was 
some welcome surprise to find a fire when I came in. 
Thought first somebody traveling through had put up. 
Then I saw those slippers lying there. That was sure 
making me take notice when you stepped out.” 

He chuckled at the recollection. Hazel lit the lamp, 
and stirred up the fire, plying it with wood. Then she 
slipped a heavy bath-robe over her nightgown and went 
into the chilly kitchen, emerging therefrom presently 
with a tray of food and a kettle of water to make cof- 
fee. This she set on the fire. Wherever she moved 
Bill’s eyes followed her with a gleam of joy, tinctured 
with smiling incredulousness. When the kettle was 
safely bestowed on the coals, he drew her on his knee. 
There for a minute she perched in rich content. Then 
she rose. 

“ Come very quietly with me. Bill,” she whispered, 
with a fine air of mystery. I want to show you some- 
thing.” 

“ Sure! What is it.? ” he asked. 

“ Come and see,” she smiled, and took up the lamp. 
Bill followed obediently. 

Close up beside her bed stood a small, square crib. 
Hazel set the lamp on a table, and turning to the bundle 
of blankets which filled this new piece of furniture, drew 


AFTER MANY DAYS 


345 


back one corner, revealing a round, puckered-up in- 
fant face. 

“ For the love of Mike ! ” Bill muttered. “ Is it — 
is it—” 

“ It’s our son,” she whispered proudly. “ Born the 
tenth of January — three weeks ago to-day. Don’t, 
don’t — you great bear — you’ll wake him.” 

For Bill was bending down to peer at the tiny morsel 
of humanity, with a strange, abashed smile on his face, 
his big, clumsy fingers touching the soft, pink cheeks. 
And when he stood up he drew a long breath, and laid 
one arm across her shoulders. 

‘‘ Us two and the kid,” he said whimsically. “ It 
should be the hardest combination in the world to bust. 
Are you happy, little person.? ” 

She nodded, clinging to him, wordlessly happy. And 
presently she covered the baby’s face, and they went 
back to sit before the great fireplace, where the kettle 
bubbled cheerfully and the crackling blaze sent forth 
its challenge to the bevy of frost sprites that held high 
revel outside. 

And, after a time, the blaze died to a heap of glowing 
embers, and the forerunning wind of a northeast storm 
soughed and whistled about a house deep wrapped in 
contented slumber, a house no longer divided against 
itself. 


THE END 






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